U.S. flags bought with tax dollars must be American made, says Senate
Plain Dealer – If American flags are bought with U.S. tax dollars, they should be made entirely in America, the U.S. Senate said with a unanimous vote Wednesday evening.
If the House of Representatives follows suit later this year, it will be the law.
The flag measure, sponsored by U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, has symbolic meaning but no impact on the nation’s biggest flag maker, Annin & Co., which employs about 500 people nationwide, including at a plant in Coshocton, Ohio. The federal government buys flags only from certified small enterprises, and New Jersey-based Annin is too large, said Dale Coots, the company’s marketing manager.
“But we’re happy that it’s going to employ Americans,” Coots said.
Current federal law requires that only 50 percent of components in flags for the government be U.S.-made. Brown’s bill would up the made-in-America component level to 100 percent except under special circumstances such as undue delays in supplies.
