strollingbones
Diamond Member
While the agreement is obviously good news for the workers whoâll keep their jobs, letâs not lose sight of the relevant details Donald Trump doesnât want to talk about.
1. Carrier jobs are still moving to Mexico. While the company will receive $7 million in taxpayer money to keep roughly 800 jobs in Indiana, the Wall Street Journal reports that Carrier âstill plans to move 600 jobs from the Carrier plant to Mexico,â plus moving another 700 other jobs that will be lost when it closes a separate plant in Huntington, Ind. In other words, under Trumpâs alleged triumph, the one that will teach a valuable lesson to American companies, Carrier is shipping 1,300 jobs from Indiana to Mexico, even as receives millions of dollars from the state.
2. This is the exact opposite of what Trump said heâd do. As a presidential candidate, Trump mocked government efforts to keep employers stateside with grants, tax incentives, and low-interest loans. Candidate Trump said that approach âdoesnât work,â which is why heâd use a stick rather than a carrot: âWhat you do is you tell them, âYou move to Mexico, you`re going to pay a 35 percent tax bringing these products that you make in Mexico back into the country.ââ
Except, with Carrier, Trumpâs doing exactly what he promised not to do, ignoring the solution he assured voters would work âeasily.â
discussed yesterday, paying off companies that threaten to ship jobs out of the country is not the basis for a sustainable, national manufacturing strategy. On the contrary, it creates a problematic set of incentives: if companies are led to believe the government will give them money to stay in the United States, every employer, whether they have outsourcing plans or not, will have a strong incentive to routinely call up the Trump White House and say, âGive us a sweet, taxpayer-financed deal or weâre out of here.â
4. Beware of unknown incentives. We know about the $7 million. We donât know for certain whether there are any as-yet-unreported parts of the deal. The Wall Street Journal piece added the federal government is an important customer for Carrierâs corporate parent, United Technologies: âThe U.S. military accounts for about 10% of United Technologiesâ $56 billion in annual sales, for products like the engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.â
Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, the top Democrat on the Finance Committee, said he would be asking more about the Carrier deal and said he would inquire whether there were promises about defense contracts.
âI want to know whether the president-elect promised special federal tax breaks for a single company,â Mr. Wyden said Thursday. âI want to do everything I can to keep jobs in the United States, but there are some questions here.â
5. Conservatives should be howling: Iâm so old, I remember when conservatives were disgusted with the idea of politicians using government money to pick âwinners and losers.â Apparently, the right didnât mean it.
Again, Iâm happy for those Hoosiers whoâll keep their jobs. I also understand the benefits of a political p.r. campaign in which Trump hails himself as a hero for effectively bribing Carrier to only lay off some of its Indiana workforce.
But the details shouldnât be swept under the rug because theyâre politically inconvenient for Donald Trump.
The parts of the Carrier deal Trump doesn't want to talk about
1. Carrier jobs are still moving to Mexico. While the company will receive $7 million in taxpayer money to keep roughly 800 jobs in Indiana, the Wall Street Journal reports that Carrier âstill plans to move 600 jobs from the Carrier plant to Mexico,â plus moving another 700 other jobs that will be lost when it closes a separate plant in Huntington, Ind. In other words, under Trumpâs alleged triumph, the one that will teach a valuable lesson to American companies, Carrier is shipping 1,300 jobs from Indiana to Mexico, even as receives millions of dollars from the state.
2. This is the exact opposite of what Trump said heâd do. As a presidential candidate, Trump mocked government efforts to keep employers stateside with grants, tax incentives, and low-interest loans. Candidate Trump said that approach âdoesnât work,â which is why heâd use a stick rather than a carrot: âWhat you do is you tell them, âYou move to Mexico, you`re going to pay a 35 percent tax bringing these products that you make in Mexico back into the country.ââ
Except, with Carrier, Trumpâs doing exactly what he promised not to do, ignoring the solution he assured voters would work âeasily.â
discussed yesterday, paying off companies that threaten to ship jobs out of the country is not the basis for a sustainable, national manufacturing strategy. On the contrary, it creates a problematic set of incentives: if companies are led to believe the government will give them money to stay in the United States, every employer, whether they have outsourcing plans or not, will have a strong incentive to routinely call up the Trump White House and say, âGive us a sweet, taxpayer-financed deal or weâre out of here.â
4. Beware of unknown incentives. We know about the $7 million. We donât know for certain whether there are any as-yet-unreported parts of the deal. The Wall Street Journal piece added the federal government is an important customer for Carrierâs corporate parent, United Technologies: âThe U.S. military accounts for about 10% of United Technologiesâ $56 billion in annual sales, for products like the engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.â
Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, the top Democrat on the Finance Committee, said he would be asking more about the Carrier deal and said he would inquire whether there were promises about defense contracts.
âI want to know whether the president-elect promised special federal tax breaks for a single company,â Mr. Wyden said Thursday. âI want to do everything I can to keep jobs in the United States, but there are some questions here.â
5. Conservatives should be howling: Iâm so old, I remember when conservatives were disgusted with the idea of politicians using government money to pick âwinners and losers.â Apparently, the right didnât mean it.
Again, Iâm happy for those Hoosiers whoâll keep their jobs. I also understand the benefits of a political p.r. campaign in which Trump hails himself as a hero for effectively bribing Carrier to only lay off some of its Indiana workforce.
But the details shouldnât be swept under the rug because theyâre politically inconvenient for Donald Trump.
The parts of the Carrier deal Trump doesn't want to talk about
