If John Callahan did anything at Monday night's Congressional debate, it was to drive home his 5-point jobs plan. He tried to work it into every answer.I've been told I'm comparing apples and oranges, but I am amazed that any person who announces a hiring freeze and threatens layoffs, can have the gall to claim he's got a plan to produce jobs. When he finally did get a chance to unveil it, he bungled a "real simple plan" talking about point two and point four then point one or point five. I was beginning to wonder whether he was talking about decimals.
Yesterday, Charlie Dent's campaign blasted Callahan’s “five-point plan” as nothing more than a big tax increase on American manufacturers who export products, to pay for a plan that will be completely ineffective in creating jobs.
Here's their analysis:
1. “Eliminate tax loopholes for corporations that outsource our jobs overseas or use off-shore accounts to avoid paying their fair share.” - In reality, this is a tax on ALL American-based businesses that do business overseas. The National Association of Manufacturers says this tax “will jeopardize the jobs of American manufacturing employees and stifle our fragile economy.”
2. “Provide tax credits for small businesses that hire new employees,” - This $1,000 tax credit is dismissed by small business organizations as being completely useless in creating jobs.
3. “Make college more affordable and job training more available,” - Everyone supports this goal, and thanks to Callahan’s tax increases, more people will be going back to school because they’ll have no job.
4. “Cut wasteful spending and reduce the national debt in order to reassure financial markets,” - Callahan has fully endorsed a Washington agenda that produced an annual deficit of nearly $1.4 trillion this year, triples the deficit in ten years, an $862 Stimulus bill and a $2.6 trillion health care program.
5. “Cut the red tape and bureaucracy that holds small businesses back,” - Callahan endorsed the “1099 provision” of the health care law that the National Federation of Independent Businesses (NFIB) calls "another crippling paperwork mandate that unfairly targets small businesses," costing employers an average $74 per hour for tax paperwork.
Callahan’s “jobs plan” last year was to support a failed Stimulus bill that has seen a loss of 3.6 million jobs. Unemployment, which was 7 percent at the time of the Stimulus, has remained above 9 percent for 16 consecutive months. Today, unemployment is at 9.6 percent and nearly 15 million Americans are looking for jobs.
“Talk is cheap – John Callahan’s actions speak louder than his feeble words,” Congressman Dent said. “Callahan’s ‘plan’ is the same failed policy that is coming out of Washington – and it isn’t putting anyone back to work.”
Yes, what we have here is very deep and serious policy analysis, and not just a bunch of hyperventilating from right wing business organizations like the Chamber of Commerce and related groups.
ReplyDeleteDent has no business complaining about the deficit as long as he supports the Republican tax cut plan for millionaires and billionaires that costs $4 trillion over the next 10 years. Mitch McConnell wants to pay for it with a $300 billion spending freeze. Do the math. Conservatives don't care about the deficit.
It is also not true that the stimulus "lost jobs". PA2010 fact-checked this already:
More than a year-and-a-half after the stimulus package was enacted, even conservative economists credit it with creating and saving jobs. Mark Zandi, the head economist at Moody’s at a former adviser to John McCain, has said the economy would have as many as 3 million fewer jobs today without the stimulus. And the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has credited with between 1.2 and 2.8 million jobs, making the the unemployment rate as much as 1.5 percent lower than it would have been.
That didn’t stop Fitzpatrick from saying in a recent statement that the stimulus “brought us less jobs.” Similarly, Toomey’s campaign said in a recent ad that the stimulus added to the deficit “without creating jobs.”
Other Republicans have been more careful with their rhetoric, correctly saying that the Obama administration had projected the unemployment rate would top out at eight percent if the stimulus passed (it eventually edged past 10 percent).
The reason unemployment is over 8 percent is because everyone's original worst-case estimates of how bad the recession would be, and how large a stimulus we would need, proved to be too optimistic. The fundamentals were much worse than everyone thought they were in early 2009 when the package was being designed.
But that's an argument for a bigger stimulus package, not an argument for doing nothing. If Dent had his way, and the government did nothing, we would have at least 12% unemployment right now.
Poor Jon, full of sound and fury signifying nothing
ReplyDeletetoo many words.....
ReplyDeletethat's why Democrats lose today. We need to get back to Bill Clinton ... "Safe, Legal, Rare."
The most important points here to investigate are #1 [closing tax loopholes for outsourcing] and #2 [giving tax credits that stimulate businesses back in America to hire more Americans.
ReplyDeleteI will have to look into this more. What I'm wondering is:
On #1: if by saying it's a tax hike on ALL American businesses that do business overseas, does he mean just in terms of hiring overseas, or also exporting?
On #2: is the tax break for hiring Americans $1000/per new hire? if so, it may not help a lot, but it will help a little, it will not, however, help close the competition gap between those that ship jobs overseas, and those that hire Americans. much more has to be done, because companies that outsource will still have a gigantic advantage in that they're getting their labor so cheap.
what would end outsourcing would be a global minimum wage. $8/hr here and $8/hour anywhere else. you would see American companies immediately start getting out of dodge and heading home to the states then...
"what would end outsourcing would be a global minimum wage"
ReplyDeleteHow about lowering the corporate tax rate at home? Why immediately go to the more regulation and government route?
It's cheaper overseas. when you continue to lower the high end tax rate the very rich aren't going to risk capital in a poor market. They are better off sitting on their money. The entire premise of Reaganomics was flawed. what we are experiencing today is part of the fallout of his disastrous destruction of the middle-class. Tax rates are lower today than in 1980, so axiomatically you would think things would be wonderful.
ReplyDeleteGovernment is an easy target but the idea of "guns and butter" works no better under Bush/Obama than it did under Lydon Johnson.
Pull your goddamn heads out of the sand and grow the Hell up. Nothing is for nothing and nobody shares their wealth.
"Nothing is for nothing and nobody shares their wealth."
ReplyDeleteSo let's just take it from them. That is sure to get the economy moving.
Is this the same Charlie Dent that voted against the Small Business Jobs bill back in May.
ReplyDeleteWhat is with the double speak Charlie?
@9:28, Nice try, the devil is in the details. Whatever is bills are put forward by the liberals in charge right now is not going to do anything to help small businesses.
ReplyDeleteAnon 959. Yes, I guess the bill has death panels too. Oh please.
ReplyDeleteSo you think going back to the Republican policies that created this financial disaster will get us out it?
Anon 7:01--I think we would all love to see ourselves as a nation of individuals and businesses that will do the right thing for the good of everyone without the forced intervention of regulation. But the track record of human nature is that many are greedy, and most are self-serving, and if given the opportunity, they will make as much money as they can without concern for the nation. This was Alan Greenspan's self-admitted mistake--that he thought the market would take care of itself and that investors would do what was necessary to save the whole. But they didn't--and drove it into the ground for the sake of their own greed, until government decided to step in (and believe me, I am no fan of the bailouts).
ReplyDeleteThe sad truth about our nation is that without restrictions, American businesses will continue to ship our jobs overseas as they have been doing for years (especially since Clinton opened the floodgates) because the savings in labor (and not having to provide pensions) is astronomical, and will continue to broaden their profit margins while the economy continues to head toward collapse.
I am no expert in economics, but know human nature pretty well, and my experience tells me that if we cut taxes to corporations, they will just throw a big party, reward the politicians that passed the tax cuts for them, and continue to send jobs overseas because that's how they can make the most money--by saving on labor costs.
I mean really--how many people do we all know in the world, who are so noble that they will pass up an opportunity to get rich (or richer) to do what's good for the community?
We will get nothing unless we fight for it, and these corporate interests are extremely rich and powerful, and now with the new supreme court decision to allow unlimited corporate campaign contributions, we are up against a Goliath of Big Gas, Big Oil, Big Pharma like never before.
They do not care about us, or about our nation. They simply want to get richer and richer until they die, and do not care about fellow Americans.
"But the track record of human nature is that many are greedy, and most are self-serving, and if given the opportunity, they will make as much money as they can without concern for the nation."
ReplyDeleteJust because there are a few bad apples doesnt mean we damn the rest. That is the problem with government. The vast majority of businesses react to simple economic principles. Under your logic, government would have to control every facet of life because there are a few bad apples everywhere and involved in everything.
"unlimited corporate campaign contributions, we are up against a Goliath of Big Gas, Big Oil, Big Pharma like never before"
ReplyDeleteI think you got that straight from the national Dems website. Take a look at the opensecrets website. The majority of the Top donors in this country are unions or other liberal organizations!
http://www.mcall.com/news/local/easton/mc-easton-nurture-nature-tax-20100917,0,3910384.story
ReplyDeleteNext time Dent talks about taxes, I wonder if he will address his advocacy of ear marks for an area non-profit sited by the IRS for misusing its money. Charlie Dent and fiscal responsibility just turned into a punch line.