If you currently reside in a swing state as I do you have probably seen John Kerry’s ad touting his plan to create 10 million new jobs. It doesn’t list a specific time frame for these 10 million new jobs but does give a url for his website. Conviently posted on his website is a fact sheet for his newly released economic plan.
His four main tenents are as follows: 1) Cut Middle Class Taxes (income<$200,000) 2) Restore PAYGO: Roll Back Bush Tax Cuts for Wealthy to Pay for Health and Education 3) Restrain Discretionary Spending and 4) Cut Corporate Welfare to Reduce the Deficit.
In regards to his first tenet Kerry claims that the typical worker has seen their real wages fall $1,200. As far as I could find he provides no numbers or statistics to back these up. His first two bullets under this category are in regards to health care and not raising taxes so I will ignore them for the purpose of this debate. In the third bullet he states that he will close coporate loopholes in regards to taxes to pay for ** any additional tax cuts to stimulate job creation or relieve the middle-class squeeze **. Even as an arm chair economist I can tell that “raising” taxes on corporations will not result in job growth but in fact just the opposite. Corporations will have less money to spend on new workers or on growth if their taxes are higher. He says that this will pay for tax cuts to stimulate job creation. I ask which businesses or who will recieve these tax cuts to stimulate jobs if corporations will see their taxes “raised”? (I put raised in quotes becuase Kerry is not advocating additional corporate taxes but closing loopholes in the current laws.)
As far as his second tenent to roll back Bush’s tax cuts he does not make any claims that this will cause job growth so I will disregard it for the purposes of this debate.
In his third bullet Kerry tells us where he will get the new revenue for additional spending he proposes. He will collect royalties for mineral rights on federal land. Again I don’t understand how increasing taxes on businesses will yield additional jobs. He plans to cut electricity use by 20 percent in the next 10 years. He provides no numbers or specifics to say how he will do this. He wants to cut subsidies to high income farms. Again I don’t see how taking money away from businesses will cause job growth. He also plans to save money by eliminating 100,000 contracting jobs to the government. I find it pretty absurd that he is saying his plan will create 10 million new jobs while the plan involves directly eliminating jobs.
The fourth bullet talks about how he plans on reducing corporate welfare. He claims that can save 10s of billions of dollars a year by doing so. I know am starting to sound like a broken record but how does taking money away from businesses promote job growth. It can’t be that the government will use this money to hire more workers becuase Kerry previously said that he was reducing the number of contractors.
In addition to that press release he has a seperate section on the jobs and the economy on his website. This page has his plans for keeping jobs in America instead of outsourcing them overseas.
Give Workers Notice:
He wants to require companies to inform laid of workers of resources availible to them. This sounds like an excellent plan but I doubt that it will ever be enacted or enforced. He also wants to require companies to give 3 months notice before laying off workers. This is just a plain bad idea, if a company makes a decision that laying off workers is in the best interest for the health of the company they should not have to wait 3 months to do so.
Keep Jobs in America:
Kerry wants government contracts to go to American workers. Yet he claims that he is going to eliminate 100,000 contractors. Cutting jobs doesn’t sound like keeping them in America to me.
He wants the government to stop giving contracts to companies that break the rules such as World Com. This is an excellent idea but he also doesn’t provide any evidence that we are currently giving contracts to these companies.
He wants to require a tag similiar to the “made in whereever” tags we see on manufactured goods to call centers. Meaning that he wants to require companies to inform callers that their call is not going to a call center in the United States. This is an excellent idea becuase it allows consumers to choose to keep their business in America. I doubt however that this will change many consumers behaviors becuase Americans like all humans want the lowest price on their goods. The public frets and moans about lost American jobs but frequents stores like Wal-Mart in which nearly everything is imported. If Americans really cared that much about keeping jobs in America they would only buy American made products.
Part of a Real Plan to Create Real Jobs:
Kerry wants to provide tax breaks to companies that produce manufactured goods in the United States. It seems like a good idea but Kerry doesn’t provide specifics as to how much of a tax break or what would qualify.
He also has a plan to give small businesses a tax credit for health care and plans to make it easier for them to aquire capital and loans. This along with the previous paragraph in theory will help create new jobs but without specifics to his plans and the amount of tax credits we have no way of determing how effective they will be.
He wants to invest in renewable energy and technologies that will create 500,000 new jobs and make energy more affordable. Color me confused but as far as I know renewable energy is generally more expensive that burning non-renewable fuel. I don’t see how creating 500,000 new jobs (again no specifics as to how this will happen) in an unprofitable industry is a good idea. These jobs and industries will have to be heavily subsidized by the government and the government propping up unprofitable industries is never a good idea.
Kerry says he will “crack on countries that violate trade agreements and will take action when American industries are hurt.” (I think he means crack down but I don’t know he might just call them stupid or something.) This is definately an area which he will do much better than Bush on. In a perfect world we should not trade with countries such as China until they raise wages to levels comparible to U.S. workers. But can we afford to sacrifice a market with 1 billion people plus all the additional countries that don’t pay their workers a high enough wage? I think the solution is that workers in the U.S. need to have a higher skill set than workers in other countries.
Kerry sees this solution also and proposes tax credits for college with a plan to make college as universal as high school. The problem with this that not everybody can make it through college. There is a reason that only half of Americans go to school and only half of those come out with a degree. College is hard and it requires a lot of hard work, study and a certain level of innate ability. There is no way that we will see job growth from this in the next 4 years and I am doubtful that we will ever see college graduates as common as high school graduates.
I think Kerry has some decent ideas for the economy but I am highly skeptical that they will help create jobs. Making corporations and rich people pay more taxes will help the middle and lower classes but saying that it will cause job growth is ludicrus.
I would just like to note that nowhere in the O.P. did I mention President Bush nor his economic plan. I would ask that posters do the same and stick to debating Kerry’s economic plan. If you want to debate Bush’s plan by all means start a thread and do so but please keep it out of this one.
