Economic Illiteracy: Sanders' Reaction to Trump Carrier Deal as Backwards as You Might Expect

[Leroy N. Soetoro]

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/guybenson/2016/12/02/economic-illiteracy-
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As Donald Trump and Mike Pence took their much-publicized victory lap at
an Indiana manufacturing plant yesterday, Bernie Sanders -- a supposed
champion of working people -- blasted the deal struck between the newly-
elected Republican presidential ticket and Carrier to keep approximately
1,000 blue collar jobs in America. I'll circle back to the substance
behind Thursday's splashy, celebratory announcement in a moment, but
first, here's America's highest-profile elected Socialist lashing out at
Trump in the Washington Post:

President-elect Donald Trump will reportedly announce a deal with United
Technologies, the corporation that owns Carrier, that keeps less than
1,000 of the 2,100 jobs in America that were previously scheduled to be
transferred to Mexico. Let’s be clear: It is not good enough to save some
of these jobs. Trump made a promise that he would save all of these jobs,
and we cannot rest until an ironclad contract is signed to ensure that all
of these workers are able to continue working in Indiana without having
their pay or benefits slashed. In exchange for allowing United
Technologies to continue to offshore more than 1,000 jobs, Trump will
reportedly give the company tax and regulatory favors that the corporation
has sought.

Just a short few months ago, Trump was pledging to force United
Technologies to “pay a damn tax.” He was insisting on very steep tariffs
for companies like Carrier that left the United States and wanted to sell
their foreign-made products back in the United States. Instead of a damn
tax, the company will be rewarded with a damn tax cut. Wow! How’s that for
standing up to corporate greed? How’s that for punishing corporations that
shut down in the United States and move abroad? In essence, United
Technologies took Trump hostage and won. And that should send a shock wave
of fear through all workers across the country.
I responded to Bernie's critique on Fox News with Shannon Bream:

Sanders bellyaches that Trump didn't save every single job in the batch,
noting that hundreds are still being relocated to Mexico. He only saved
some of the jobs! doesn't strike me as a particularly trenchant or
convincing argument -- and certainly not one that "should send a shock
wave of fear" through American workers, 1,000 of whom will remain employed
in the heartland, thanks to the new agreement.

Dumber still is Sanders' lamentation that Carrier was partially
incentivized with tax breaks to hold those jobs in America. They should
have been taxed more (what a novel thought), the Vermont Senator suggests.
As I note in the clip, this is fantasy. Sanders believes the government
can interfere to force companies not to offshore jobs while forcing them
to pay more in taxes.

He seems to think that erecting additional barriers to job creation and
profitability is a surefire solution to spur job-securing and job-creating
decisions from corporate executives. Command and control.
Unsurprisingly, Sanders' vision has it exactly backwards.

That being said, although it's no doubt great PR for Trump and a feel-good
moment for those workers whose jobs have been spared, this loudly-touted
deal does not represent a sustainable model over the long term. The
federal government should not be carving out sweetheart deals and picking
winners and losers with the tax code. When liberals do this,
conservatives decry it as crony capitalism. And there is a distinct
cronyist whiff about this whole development, including credible
speculation that Carrier's parent company was protecting its lucrative
government contracts by handing Trump a win here.

The more lasting and sound economic path forward is to reform the tax code
and reduce regulations in order to make America a more attractive,
competitive and stable place to do business and create jobs. The
fostering of that sort of pro-business environment ought to be the Trump
administration's top economic priority; Trump himself has endorsed this
overall approach, which is encouraging.

Conservatives should hope that he pursues it upon taking office. If he
does, its long-term, substantive benefits will far outweigh the impact of
any occasional ad hoc, Carrier-style deals he may negotiate and boast
about -- which, admittedly, can make for great politics. At the very
least, Trump is sending a strong signal before he even takes office that
he's committed to working hard on behalf of workers, even if his methods
aren't ideal. Cementing that bond of trust and attracting some positive
press may give him the operating space and political capital to implement
needed reforms and policy changes that will benefit all Americans. That's
the optimistic take, at least.

I'll leave you with a strong free market critique of Trump's Carrier
cronyism, a sobering reminder of the economic realities of automation vis-
a-vis America's manufacturing sector, and full video of yesterday's
triumphant event in Indianapolis:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHBgb9DhYh4


--
Donald J. Trump, 306 electoral votes to 232, defeated compulsive liar in
denial Hillary Rodham Clinton and put an end to Barack Obama on November
8, 2016. The clown car parade of the democrat party ran out of gas.

ObamaCare is a total 100% failure and no lie that can be put forth by its
supporters can dispute that.

His Omnipotence Barack Hussein Obama, declared himself "Pooptator" of all
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will defecate.

Obama increased total debt from $10 trillion to $20 trillion in the eight
years he has been in office, and sold out heterosexuals for Hollywood
queer liberal democrat donors.

Loretta Fuddy, killed after she "verified" Obama's phony birth
certificate.

Obama ignored the brutal killing of an American diplomat in Benghazi, then
relieved American military officers who attempted to prevent said murder
in order to cover up his own ineptitude.

[First-Post]

So Sanders believes it better to just leave it alone and let ALL of
those employees end up in the unemployment line.

The attitude Sanders is conveying is that if he saw a ship sinking
from his yacht and went to help, if he could only save, for example,
100 of the passengers out of 125 total then he'd just let them all
drown.
I guess with socialism and trying to make everyone equal and all......

But seriously, He's pissed because Trump hasn't indicated that he's
still going to penalize them for NOT relocating the plant?
And the tax incentive that Carrier is getting applies only to that
particular plant in Indiana. It is not a tax incentive being given to
the entire corporation or any other plants that will relocate.
And just how does he know for a fact that the products coming into
America from any plants in Mexico still won't have a tariff levied on
them?
Legally you can't force the American based company to pay a higher tax
as far as their corporate tax is concerned because the courts would
rule that to be just outright unfair in a heartbeat. You can't say
that the corporate tax will be lowered to 15% across the board "except
for companies that do A, B or C".
The only legal recourse Trump has regarding a "tax" on such businesses
is indeed a tax or tariff on the imported goods.

Of course you have to keep in mind that Sanders promised that if he
was elected that ALL college tuitions would be free and footed by the
government. Which would only cost the taxpayers around $3 trillion a
year. So his take on economics and revenue obviously isn't the
greatest in the country.

[Rudy Canoza]

A completely *SHIT* analogy.

We - taxpayers - won't be "saving" any jobs. We will be reducing growth
and employment elsewhere to preserve these 1000 workers' privileged
(relative to others not similarly protected) standard of living.

> But seriously, He's pissed because Trump hasn't indicated that he's
> still going to penalize them for NOT relocating the plant?

You have it backward.

> And the tax incentive that Carrier is getting applies only to that
> particular plant in Indiana. It is not a tax incentive being given to
> the entire corporation or any other plants that will relocate.

Exactly. That's just what's wrong with it. It's a special privilege
that other firms don't enjoy.

Fiscal policy to keep politically favored jobs going always fails - always.