An interesting commentary popped up on our radar earlier this week when the Heritage Foundation turned an even-keeled furrow toward the injustices that are: Buy American clauses attached to federal transportation grants.

The taxpayer, they argue, is suffering, while special interests -- the manufacturing sector and the specter of greedy unions -- are growing fat on rules that require domestic producers to get a first shot in the bidding process.

Critics like to claim that Buy American policies are a recent idea (they aren't), that they violate our international trade agreements (they don't), that our trading partners don’t employ their own domestic procurement requirements (many do), or that they're inflexible and exorbitantly expensive (not so).

Buy America preferences for infrastructure projects aren't there to appease a special interest -- unless the special interest could be described as "the American taxpayer and American businesses that employ American workers."  They encourage our tax dollars to stay in country, instead of being sent overseas. They're as commonsense and simple as that.

Read more on 'Buy America' preferences here.