Kerry’s jobs plan: “A hoax on the unemployed and giveaway for the rich”

[IndianaGreen]

The following is a statement by Socialist Equality Party presidential candidate Bill Van Auken in response to the “jobs plan” unveiled by Democratic presidential candidate Senator John Kerry in a March 26 speech in Detroit, Michigan.

SEP US presidential candidate on Kerry’s jobs plan: “A hoax on the unemployed and giveaway for the rich”
By Bill Van Auken
2 April 2004

The so-called jobs plan advanced by Democratic presidential candidate Senator John Kerry last week represents a cruel hoax on the unemployed and another tax giveaway for the super-rich.

While millions of jobless workers are facing foreclosure on their homes, the cutoff of health insurance, and the specter of destitution, Kerry has outlined a proposal geared to further fatten the bank accounts of America’s wealthiest 1 percent.

The plan centers on the premise that a 5 percent cut in corporate income tax, combined with ending the existing tax deferral on the unrepatriated overseas profits of US-based corporations, will stimulate job creation in the United States.

Despite the squabbles of the Democrats and Republicans over taxes, the Kerry plan is fundamentally in line with the Bush administration’s prescription of massive tax cuts for the wealthy and the corporations as the supposed means for overcoming the jobs crisis. There are no grounds for expecting any different result from a Democratic tax windfall for big business than from a Republican version of the same basic policy: trillions of dollars for the rich and millions more jobs wiped out.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/apr2004/kerr-a02.shtml

[aquart]

1. And Mr. Van Auken's plan is worldwide economic chaos.

And could not, even at its most ideal, be implemented in time to stop those tragic foreclosures or cutoffs of healthcare so it is just the teensiest bit disingenuous to mention them, don't you think?

I appreciate the good intentions. Practically speaking, I ain't impressed. Tens of thousands, maybe millions, would starve or die waiting for his reforms to be put in place "worldwide."

Has he considered starting in Iraq?

[Union Thug]

5. sounds more like New Deal policies to me / eom

[teryang]

2. I think that tax policy could be used favorably

...to reverse several unfavorable corporate trends hurting the average working person, the unemployed, and democracy in general. I don't know enough about Kerry's proposals to defend them.

I hope someone takes a stab at it.

[Jim Sagle]

3. The SEP is totally wack.

[cavebat2000]

4. I kinda think Kerry is wack

Who voted for him again?

[Jim Sagle]

12. I voted for Dean. I'll be voting for Kerry in November.

[IndianaGreen]

7. I believe we were discussing Kerry's economic plan, not the SEP

Van Auken says that Kerry's plan will not reverse outsourcing and offshoring. Van Auken also says that Kerry's plan would exempt the profits made by the US corporations' foreign subsidiaries in the countries in which they are located.

NAFTA is the biggest cause for the loss of American industrial jobs. Indiana has been hard hit by thousands of manufacturing jobs that have been moved to Mexico. These jobs won't come back even if Kerry were to get elected.

Kerry supports NAFTA, so we can expect a further erosion of our industrial base as American corporations maximize their profits by moving production to those countries where cheap labor is plentiful, organized labor is suppressed by the government, and environmental laws are non-existent.

[DBoon]

6. Someday, in a different America

These arguments might make sense.

For now, we have gone so far down the path of reactionary fascism, a middle of the road liberal like Kerry looks damn good.

[Union Thug]

8. No question

about it. We need to get Kerry in the White House. However, that doesn't mean I'm going to abandon my socialist values. To me, Kerry is a strategic vote.

[DBoon]

9. Strategy means thinking in the long term, too

n/t

[rockymountaindem]

10. I'm happy to hear you say that

as a "middle of the road liberal" who doesn't take any votes for granted. Hopefully someday we'll all be able to have our differences of opinion, but for now it's all about winning the election.

Good to have you aboard.

:toast:

[w13rd0]

11. Yup...

...I'm no Kerry fan. Other day I'm talking to a friend, he aks me, "should I donate to Kerry" (he's never donated to a political campaign before). So I go about explaining to him all the reasons he should. Surprised, he says, "I'm surprised, I didn't peg you for a Kerry fan." "No, I'm not a Kerry fan, but if we buy his ass out before the corporations have a chance to, we're in a far better boat than we would be with Bush." With many, we'll have to find reasons other than "Vote for Kerry, he's not Bush." But for just as many, that'll be reason enough. I'm just hopeful that the DNC and DLC aren't just trying to throw the election against the Chimpenator with the Dawn of the Dead. I have serious doubts that they've the will to win. It's mostly us yahoos urging them on. If we weren't screaming, they'd still all be on their backs asking Bush to just be gentle with them.

[Disturbed]

13. Plutocracy

Kerry is part of the Plutocracy. His plans are a bit to the left of Buscho regarding the economy and quite a bit to the left of Social Issues but not far from Buscho on Foreign Policy, except that he is a mulit-lateralist. With a Kerry Admin. I don't think the US will federalize the "Right To Work" Law that some states have adopted,which is a Union busiting law. A Kerry Admin. won't put forward any Right Wing Supreme Court Justices either. Aslo, Patriot Act 1 & 2 would probably be scaled back a lot.

[IndianaGreen]

17. Not a single Democratic President since Harry Truman..

Not a single Democratic President since Harry Truman (whose veto of Taft-Hartley was overridden) has worked for the repeal of Taft-Hartley, the most anti-labor piece of legislation Congress has ever passed in the last 100 years. Neither Kennedy, nor Johnson, nor Carter, nor Clinton tried to restore bargaining power to the working class of this country. They were more protective of the power of the corporations over their workers, than over the power of the workers to organize and act in unison.

[Fovea]

19. If the only difference were that he was a multi lateralist

That would be enough to make him a damn sight better than Bush.
I don't care if he rescues the working and middle classes out of a sence of noblesse oblige or crass populism the likes of which we have not seen since Huey Long.

Having said that...

I support Kucinich for two reasons.
1. Survival factor. This is a Rove election, after all.
2. Pushing the Dems back to a progressive platform.

[Ardee]

14. Nice try Indie

Present all the "facts" you can garner but folks here at DU have proven to be so very gullible that they will opt for the chocolate coated poison pill that is Kerry every single time!

A generation raised on comic books finds it far too easy to paint Bush as a caricature rather than read, study and understand that it is the system rather than the individual that is the problem. There is a security in belonging that comforts folks and while they huddle together the ship sinks beneath the waves....me Im swimming!

[NuttyFluffers]

18. au-contrair

many of us here know the system for what it is. we are just realistic that you need a step in the right direction, and some steps are just too big to take for the first one.

it's compromising the idealistic for the practical. one is nice to have, another produces results. right now we need positive results, even if they aren't ideal.

if you're destitute do you refuse $100 because it isn't the $1 mil. you were wanting? if you do, who are you making a point to? ideal v. practical

time to set down your pride and dreams and deal with reality. there'll be another time to deal with the other stuff once kerry is elected. if bush is elected you'll only be farther away.

[KG]

15. sound like more 'trickle down' to me

this is BS. corporations DO NOT need another tax cut. that will not lead to job creation. sales and demand do that.

meet the new boss, same as the old boss :eyes:

[Lydia Leftcoast]

16. I have to agree

Kucinich's plan would save and create more jobs: abrogate the treaties that encourage outsourcing, renegotiate them, and start public works project to refurbish and expand this country's aging infrastructure. (The streets in MInneapolis alone...)

It would be very similar to the New Deal, but oh, no, we can't have it, because the only "economic policy" that the corporate masters of this country will permit even to be discussed widely is what kinds of corporate tax breaks there should be.