[DampRobot]

Welcome to 2014, where parts from China are both cheaper and better made.

From talking to various suppliers, it seems like the US is a really poor choice for FRC manufacturing (unless you need super fast turnarounds, and maybe not even then). Chinese manufactures are much cheaper, produce a better product, and seem to want your business a whole lot more than US based manufacturers. Basically, in America, you pay out the nose for each setup, and in China, you're essentially only paying for material, because labor costs are so low. There's a reason a lot of high tech manufacturing still has a significant foothold in the US (such as aerospace and medical manufacturing, where profits are large because of proprietary designs), while large scale, lower profit margin manufacturing (iPhones, etc) is better done in China.

There also seems to be agreement in the business community that this disparity in manufacturing is because of the large number of taxes and regulations in the US. I'll leave whether or not this is a good thing to the amateur politicians here.