The NYT "Room for Debate" blog has a set of essays on the "Buy America" provisions in the stimulus bill. There's some good stuff in there, including the comments by economists Gary Clyde Hufbauer and Anne Kreuger noting that the provisions will cost more American jobs than they will save. The contribution by my Senator, Sherrod Brown, on the other hand, is embarrassing. He thinks it's a good idea to pay up to 25 percent more for, say, infrastructure projects to comply with a "Buy American" provision. So, in the case of a planned bridge replacement in Cleveland, it could add some $100 million (or more) to the cost of the project, which will mean fewer projects go forward. Yet somehow Senator Brown thinks this is in America's "national interest."