johnwoo

Lies and deception.
Is all that supposed to be a good thing?

Did Trump supporters know he was going sign up for Goldman Sachs to take over the Treasury Dept. They knew that all along, while the rest of us believed as much?

anotherlimey

I'm going to threaten to move to Mexico so I can get a tax break.

dakota44

In my best Sgt. Schultz voice. Very interesting.

Petraeus will have to notify his probation officer if Trump taps him as secretary of state - CNNPolitics.com

SultanOfSwing

I mean actual real reality, not just how to win a game, which is all this is to him.

It is not reality that '$7.25/hr is too high'. I've not had to try to live on that, luckily, and we have at times struggled with two incomes when we were both making a good few dollars more than that. If he's supposed to be some kind of saviour of the working class, he's a funny way of showing it.

morpeth

Not a good thing but explains why his opponents don't seem to get it. I don't think we have any idea of what his policies ( if he can get through Congress) will actually be as he said what he needed to get elected. His supporters simply so fed up and worried about the future they rolled the dice on him because of an utter lack of confidence that more of the status quo would end up with better results.

Anian

Breitbart - Supports people who don't want to sell to gays. Doesn't support people people who don't want to sell to Trump fans. Funniest part is people throwing away half empty Kellogs items that they already own.

They have gone a bit boycott crazy recently, calling for a boycott of Mark Hammill's movies due to his statements about recent politics. If you boycott everyone in Hollywood with those views then that's 95% of media. Enjoy your endless re-runs of the awful Atlas Shrugged movie and God's Not Dead.

dc koop

Well whatever the deal was with Carrier the Donald deserves a pat on the back. American jobs were saved and that's what matters above all. It's a bit sad to think that Obama would have let Carrier move south as too many jobs have already done so during his admin.

Meanwhile Nancy Pelosi continues to cling to the Democratic party leadership like a limpet to a rock. Sometimes it's tough going remaining a loyal voting member of the Dems.

dakota44

Jobs have been moving for decades. Don' t blame Obama. Carrier played Trump like a fiddle. They got the state to hand them a big tax break, courtesy of Gov. Pence, so that the hard working taxpayers of the state are basically funding those jobs either through higher taxes and fees or reduction of services through budget cuts. Not all the jobs are staying, by the way. Nice message to send to other companies...threaten to move to Mexico and we will give you big tax breaks.

Ebonhawke

I would agree that for the 1000 or so families who have had their jobs saved for the time being, it's a good thing. However, whether it's a good deal all depends on the concessions that Trump made in order to achieve the agreement.

The reported $7M over 10 years tax break that Indiana is providing them doesn't come close to balancing out the estimated $65M/year direct labor cost reduction that moving the jobs to Mexico would have created, so it leads one to believe that there is something else to the agreement.

Because UTI (Carrier's parent company) does $6-7B / year in defense contracts, Trump could have bullied or begged the company into keeping the jobs in Indiana otherwise it may impact the Defense contracts. I fully expect that UTI will build in those $65M/year cost savings into their Defense contract bids many times over (so what should cost $6B, will now cost $6.5B). It will be harder for the Trump administration to demand cost concessions from UTI on contracts, because they could simply (and very publicly) announce that Trump had broken the terms of his agreement (without specifying the terms), and they're moving the plant to Mexico again.

Pessimistically, I also fully expect that if you visit that plant again in 2 years, there won't be 1000 workers - it will be down to 700, as they don't replace workers through attrition etc, while still pocketing the tax breaks and padding in their government contracts.

Other companies may perceive individual deals with the federal government to keep jobs in the US (even if they weren't planning on leaving) may provide more tax relief, and will queue up to make their own individual deals. With an administration that has promised to slash corporate tax rates, this will continue to reduce the revenue stream for the government, and increase the deficit at an even faster rate.

You will also have their competitors claiming unfair taxation and contract sourcing practices, which will just add to the load of controversies of this administration. Instead of having a single taxation and contract sourcing approach, you will have a plethora of different policies, depending on the company.

This will make it harder for small and medium-sized companies to get off the ground (who may actually create jobs) because they are competing against larger companies that have access to taxation advantages that they don't.

dc koop

I think tax relief is what business needs in this country and with flexibility involved where necessary. There's a tremendous waste of money at all levels of government and the bloated defence budget is long overdue to be trimmed by several billion. Loss of revenue might be a good thing for Uncle Sam as a lower calorie diet would be good for a grossly overweight person.

Already the Dems are attacking Pence for not doing anything to save the Carrier jobs while governor of Illinois but in all fairness can you place the blame on him entirely when the Democrat politicians in that State did nothing either to stop the factory from moving

scrubbedexpat099

He certainly grabbed their pussies.

Obviously I would have thought that this is both tokenistic and not a solution.

RoadWarriorFromLP

Politicians play these games because gullible people lap it up.

The reality is that Carrier and United Technologies have taken subsidies from Indiana and local government before. This is yet another incentives package piled on top of previous incentive packages.

In his role as governor of Indiana, Pence has been haggling with Carrier and UTC since February. He first met with them in March, months before he was Trump's VP pick -- this was happening without Trump's involvement.

These incentives are almost always state and local. The feds typically don't get involved with bribing corporations to stay in a particular location -- that's the nature of American federalism.

dc koop

I don't think blackmail would work nor would the Trump admin allow it to. One thing is certain is that the job drain cannot continue and NAFTA is a rotten deal.
We don't owe anything to Mexico and we certainly don't need to end up like Mexico where 10 percent own everything and 90 percent are living more or less hand to mouth, The middle class have already taken too many hits over the past couple of decades

dc koop

Maybe it's time the Feds did get involved then. Doesn't the Chinese government bribe corporations to relocate to their territory and worse still they don't even negotiate half decent wages for their workers, low paid and few if any company benefits while the Chinese politicians ... and the Mexican politicians get the big kick backs

Ebonhawke

And therefore you want US industry to also have 'half decent wages, low pay, and few if any company benefits', while the government gets big kick backs?