TWO years ago, Jackie Evans Inc., a company in the city of Passaic, nearly lost its decade-long contract to make Girl Scout sashes and uniforms. The Girl Scouts of the USA were thinking about switching to a company that manufactured overseas.

"Our objective is to deliver the best value to our members and our families," the Girl Scout vice president and general manager for merchandise told The Record at the time. "It's finding out where the best business opportunity is."

A storm of media coverage and a letter from Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr., D-Paterson, persuaded the Girl Scouts to keep half their business in Passaic. The other half went to a factory in New York. A good save. But the unfortunate fact is that the federal tax code encourages companies to cut costs by sending manufacturing abroad.

In his State of the Union speech last week, President Obama outlined a plan for revamping corporate tax laws. Pascrell and Democratic U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez were at the Jackie Evans factory on Monday voicing their support. The plan includes, among other things, killing deductions for moving overseas and instituting a 20 percent income tax credit for companies moving operations back to the U.S. It also extends a provision allowing businesses to expense 100 percent of their investments for new equipment, and hopes to re-focus deductions on manufacturing.