Perplexing Prosperity

Or as the editorial board put it:

There was a strong show in nationalistic paranoia in Congress recently when it was disclosed that an Arab company tried to take over operations of U.S. ports. Lawmakers waxed poetic about the threat of putting American ports in foreign hands.

In fact, a great deal of the U.S. economy is now in the hands of foreign investors. Another very real fact is that if Congress or the Bush administration - or any president's administration, for that matter - tries to correct the situation by forcing foreign investors to sell their interests in U.S. companies or stocks and bonds, there is a distinct possibility our economy would simply collapse, like a balloon attacked by an army of needles.

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What can Americans do about this? Relatively little. The U.S. government is borrowing from foreign banks at the rate of $2 billion a day just to cover the cost of the growing trade deficit this country has with its major trading partners. And foreign investors seem happy, at least for now, to be allowed to benefit financially in U.S. markets and with U.S. companies.

The U.S. economy, as it turns out, is fully-integrated with those of foreign nations. We need them, just as they need us. It's not so much a matter of national security as it is a matter of national prosperity.

Which makes Duncan Hunter's proposal beyond-perplexing: The proposal comes from Rep. Duncan Hunter (news, bio, voting record), a California Republican and chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. He would like to set a series of draconian standards for any company wishing to buy a part of the nation's "critical infrastructure." Its chairman and CEO would have to be American, as would at least half of its board. The secretary of Defense would have to approve half of the board members and the company would have to keep tabs on the citizenship of its shareholders to make sure that no more than half were non-U.S. citizens.

The idea that the government would be allowed to choose who controls private companies is bizarre by itself. More so coming from a Republican. But that's only the beginning of the problems the bill would create.