Kerry bashing continues: Kerry's Tax Plan to Create Jobs Doesn't Add Up

[papau]

http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000039&refer=columnist_baum&sid=ap2r9Ztsxomw

Kerry's Tax Plan to Create Jobs Doesn't Add Up: Caroline Baum
Feb. 24 (Bloomberg) -- ``A tax increase ...In the long run, Varvares said, ``it may be the right thing to do in the face of large fiscal deficits and a reduction in national saving, which ultimately will raise real rates, retard investment and reduce capital formation and our standard of living.'' <snip>

Kerry has been mum on what he'd do about the reduction in the top tax rate on dividends and capital gains to 15 percent last year. (The campaign did not respond to specific inquiries on the subject.) Does he want to raise all taxes for those earning over $200,000, or just marginal tax rates from the current 35 percent back to 39.6 percent? <snip>

(GOP economist says)Lowering the return on work and investing means less of both and slower economic growth. <snip>

Kerry supports some targeted initiatives to prevent manufacturing jobs from leaving the U.S. (a lower corporate tax bracket for domestic manufacturing operations) and to create new ones (a two-year payroll tax credit for new hires).

``The difference in the cost of labor is so great, is it really worth it to give that subsidy?'' said Jim Glassman, senior U.S. economist at J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. ``It's much better to spend the money on retraining rather than trying to keep broom factories here.''... A more productive avenue would be to address the ``impediments to U.S. competitiveness,'' including health care costs, government and environmental regulation and corporate governance,'' Jasinowski said yesterday at the National Manufacturing Week conference in Chicago. <snip>

Manufacturing has always chased the cheapest source of labor. Subsidies may delay the process of outsourcing jobs overseas; they won't prevent it. <snip>

Caroline Baum in New York at [e-mail].

[redqueen]

1. I agree about the subsidies

it will slow the damage, but not reverse it.

[DuctapeFatwa]

2. The no tax breaks for outsourcers is brilliant!

It's a watch and learn moment for would-be politicians.

Kerry supporters who have been outsourced themselves stood up and cheered for his tax break speech.

He'll get no complaints from his allies in the business world - if they can reduce personnel costs by 90% or more, whether they get a tax break is not high on their agenda.

[Nicholas_J]

11. Because of the large loss of jobs

without government programs to retrain and relocate workers, Kerry is stuck with the only option, to try to keep unviable jobs viable untli they can be safely outsources without cuasing largescale unemployment. Industries like the auto industry have been largely retooled and where 15 people used to be required to do a job, not 2 people and a bank of robots are needed to do it. THus once silled labor becomes relatively unskilled. WHat is needed is a buffer period to fix what republicans broke, the means of smoothly transitioning workers into new jobs that are skiolled, rather than protecting existiing unskilled jobs. The problem has been made too complex to fix wit a simple single tax or set of protectionist tariffs. All of the E.E.C. nations have outsources a far greater portions of their unslilled manaufacturing base to India or China. But they made sure that they retrained and placed workers in new industries at the same time. Republicans just done do that. Under NAFTA,corporations were supposed to report those jobs they outsources, and the outsources individuals were supposec to recieve money for the job loss, but also supposed to recive benefits for retraining and such. As soon as Ginrich got in place, those benefits were ignored and appropriations never made. Even Bush is getting scared, as just a few days ago he started the plan for giving a half a billion dollars to community colleges to develop retraining programs for displaced workers. So they are worred about the democratic plans to fix this and offering their own small fix for it.

AS in all things, America has to invent itself out of changing situations. Not too much differt from a century ago where agriculture became so advanced, that the need for farm workers vanished, and those who lost their jobs to new farming technology went to the cities into manufacturing jobs. In terrible working conditions with terrible hours, and terrible wages. This is how the Republicans are handling it. Let people lose their jobs, let them got to others that barely pay a liveable wage, eventually it will sort itself out. Kerry has a better plan for that, but it is not going to be simple after the mess caused by Bush.

[DuctapeFatwa]

18. Good idea! There are so many jobs that CAN'T be outsourced

Like food service, hotel maintenance, landscaping - the Republicans won't be expecting that!

They'll expect the Democrats to train people for stuff like IT that is much more profitable to outsource.

As a bonus, focusing on jobs that can't be outsourced will empower Americans to take back their country from illegal aliens, and restore the American ideal that all work is honorable and dignified, and helps people build character and self-worth that is much more valuable than money.

[Scott Lee]

24. how many offshore factories for the Heinz company are there?

[xray s]

3. Tackling our wasteful 'private for profit' health insurance system is key

We are losing manufacturing jobs to Canada(!) because of their less costly national single payer health insurance system (which covers all Canadians, I might add).

[papau]

5. I agree - National Health will allow much less painful job changes

and indeed job creation.

[Nicholas_J]

12. True

I knw a lot of people miserable in their jobs and would leave them for even minimum wage drone jobs if thety could keep their health care. Health care is the major element that keeps many people enslaved to their jobs, and it is the one reason that buig business wants to keep it a benefit, rather than a right.

Republicans like Trent Lott includes health care as a government subsidy when demanding tariffs against the products of other nations

[DuctapeFatwa]

19. Kerry's plan empowers low income workers to manage their wealth wisely

by using cash on hand to pay for medical treatment, they can qualify for an extra break come tax time!

Best of all, nothing in Kerry's plan makes him vulnerable to the dreaded accusation of "socialized medicine!"

[polmaven]

4. As one whose eyes begin to glaze over

reading a lot of economic reports, aren't many of these exactly the same arguments made before President Clinton's targeted tax increase in 1994? That was passed without a single republican vote. The republicans then predicted that unemployment would soar and they foretold of the complete destruction of the economy.

I guess they were right! After all, there were only 22 million new jobs created. Looks rather anemic compared to the job creation enabled by the Bush tax cuts! The deficit suffered too. The Clinton economy was just a disaster!

Oh,.....wait.... Ummm...

[orwell]

6. Meme Bomb

``impediments to U.S. competitiveness,'' including health care costs, government and environmental regulation and corporate governance

Here is where the "meme bomb" is dropped. Why are healthy workers "impediments" to competitiveness. Why is "government and environmental regulation" an impediment where "IMF, WTO, and NAFTA regulation" not?

Everyone is looking for easy answers. There are none. Trade policy, tax policy, regulatory policy, all have to built within the framework of global strategic goals. These can not be based on narrow political or cultural ideologies, but rather a comprehensive discussion of goals and values. This is sorely lacking.

O

[DuctapeFatwa]

9. The supply of workers exceeds demand, so why spend money on unsuable

ones when it is much more cost-effective to simply replace the defective?

[orwell]

7. Ouside the Box

I would like to propose a "job program" for the 21st century in keeping with Progressive values.

How about a new national initiative called the "Clean Energy Future" program. It would set as a national priority, the development of clean alternative energy but more importantly new energy technologies such as zero point, funded in part by the Federal Government.

It would be similar to the Apollo program to put men on the moon. It would combine public and private sector investment in a type of Manhattan project for energy. This porgam would create many of high paying jobs in the technical sector and the attendent manufacturing and service jobs that would accompany such an effort.

It is evironmentally friendly.
It is a jobs program.
It would be a third world assistance program, as energy availability/cost is a key factor in third world poverty.
It addresses global warming.
It will drive export technology.
It holds the promise of dramatically reducing business and consumer costs.
It is foreign policy, reducing our dependence on forieign oil suppliers, thus reducing the costs of military spending to protect such suppliers.

This is the type of bold initiative that Kerry or Edwards could propose and Bushie could not counter as he is held hostage by the oil interests.

Just trying to think outside the box...

O

[sandnsea]

8. Are you serious??

Or are you just being sarcastic? Kerry has been talking about this exact thing for well over a year. Did you miss it?

[orwell]

10. Goal Post

I am aware that Kerry has been strong with this issue. That is one of the resons I have supported him.

What I am proposing is formal announcement, within a defining frame. The goals and benefits must be clearly spelled out. The projected costs must be laid on the table. In essence, this would become a stated formal funded policy, not just an issue advocacy.

O

[sandnsea]

13. He has

He talks about this all the time. I don't know how much further he could go, he's already accused of not campaigning in soundbytes and putting people to sleep. Well, except for when he's accused of campaigning in sound bytes and not having a plan. :eyes:

http://johnkerry.com/issues/energy/plan.html

[orwell]

15. Carbon Chronicles

I've read this before. I think you are still misunderstanding what I am talking about.

First of all, there is still a great reliance on hydrogen based solutions. President Kerry's plan, as stated, relies on coal and natural gas as fundamental elements of hydrogen generation. In essence, it still uses fossil fuels. At this point, the premier way to transport and utilize fossil fuels is under the current liquid gasoline/diesel system. It is the most efficient way to store, transport and release the energy. Even if the conversion of these fuels becomes far more efficient, many say the conversion to hydrogen will still render them less efficient than the current system. The real advantage would be in pollutants, which is still very desirable. However, there is the matter of mining the raw material or drilling for it. This has significant environmental impact.

The alternative energy thrusts and efficiency thrusts of President Kerry's plan are spot on. The most effective way to utilize the dwindling energy resources is to curb growth in worldwide demand. It is orders of magnitude more important than finding new hydrocarbon supplies.

I think the emphasis should be on R&D expenditures in the area of real alternatives to fossil fuels such as zero point (Tom Bearden's MEG) and far less desirably, both low and high temperature fusion research.

http://www.spiritofmaat.com/announce/meg.htm

The point of high levels of R&D funding with the sole purpose of replacing the hydrocarbon era is that you open the field to innovation and new technologies. These are areas that private corporations would never fund because of the tremendous risk of investment. This type of R&D can only be publicly funded at the NSF, DOE, or the university level.

The other point I am trying to make is all of this has to be packaged in what you call a "sound bite" and what I call an attractive frame. Otherwise it looks like a position paper instead of a strategic program. This may seem like I am trivializing but I assure you this step is critical for the public and the media to begin to absorb the frame.

Thanks for the link. We're on the same side here.

O

[Scott Lee]

22. While he was hiding off shore taxes?

[Armstead]

23. Orwell

Where have you been?

Haven;t seen your name in a long time. Have you been away, or have I just not ctossed paths with you?

[Zynx]

14. Subsidies are bad in general.

If we slap them on, they will cost us a great deal of money and not solve the problem. If we want to close our trade deficit which would keep more jobs here, we must work with many countries individually like Europe and get rid of subsidies all together. That would reverse that huge portion of the trade problem. 3rd world countries, except China, can be forced to impose labor and environmental standards to our liking by way of leverage and thus help there. Then we can slowly impose penalties on US companies that use Chinese labor to work China's position down.

[Deja Q]

16. Tax HIKES for outsourcers, with no loopholes

Give tax breaks to companies who put America first and be loyal to their country.

That'd be an incentive for me, if I cared more for money than people.

[Deja Q]

17. So if McDonalds workers become manufacturers rather than service people...

does that mean we'll see McCrap flown in from India?

[Scott Lee]

20. punt

[Scott Lee]

21. .