President Obama proposes tax breaks for companies 'investing in America'

[cal04]

http://thehill.com/video/administration/204161-obama-proposes-tax-breaks-for-investing-in-america

President Obama will propose tax incentives for companies that create jobs and will try to eliminate tax breaks for companies that outsource jobs, he said in his weekly address.

"In the next few weeks, I will put forward new tax proposals that reward companies that choose to do the right thing by bringing jobs home and investing in America – and eliminate tax breaks for companies that move jobs overseas," Obama said Saturday.

The tax proposals are part of the White House's "insourcing" push.

(snip)
"The companies that make these products are part of a hopeful trend: they’re bringing jobs back from overseas," Obama said. "You’ve heard of outsourcing – well, this is insourcing."

[DCBob]

1. Wow, the President is on a roll with the new proposals to help the economy.

Meanwhile the GOPers are beating each other up over Bain Capital.

[eridani]

2. The second item is the most important

Eliminating tax breaks for those who disinvest.

[cpamomfromtexas]

12. Add on idea

For any company that outsourced in the past 10 years, they must REPLACE THOSE JOBS BEFORE they would qualify for the new incentives.

That way the taxpayer is not letting the previous outsourcers shuffle the deck hoping we lose track.

[BootinUp]

19. They work together really. nt

[Beaverhausen]

20. The House under Speaker Pelosi passed such a bill

Of course, it was blocked in the Senate.

[safeinOhio]

3. The Chamber of Commerce will not

like this. How are they going to spin this as unamerican?

[L. Coyote]

4. Raise the minimum wage for an economic stimulus and for social justice

This is what was wrong with the Bush tax cuts, no stimulus involved, just enrich the rich.

[cstanleytech]

23. And then prices just go up so no raising that isnt the answer imo.

Now what they could do to encourage companies to address the current wage disparity would be say to take the lowest paid worker for a company and compare it to the highest paid person for the company (and that includes stock options regardless if they take the option or not and or other benefits) and make it so a company pays 2% more in taxes for every $50,000.00 difference between the two and the companies cannot weasel out of paying that tax as there should be zero tax breaks for that specific tax.

[L. Coyote]

29. Actually, that is not the case generally. Very few products are so wage determined

The industry that cries foul the most is restaurants.

Look at the economy of the states that raised their minimum wage in excess of the federal by significant amounts. Their economies did better because the people have money to spend at the end of the week. Then that money is re-spent on Monday, Wed., Friday, .....

This is not like giving big banks trillions to rat away

[cstanleytech]

36. Except would raising it level the playing field even a little when it comes to what the %1 earn?

I dont think that a minimum wage increase would have have such an impact where as telling the companies that if they arent fair in their wages that they will suffer a penalty might just do that.

[Hotler]

5. The president should have proposed this the first week he was in office.

If I remember we had control of the house and senate then. In stead of tax breaks attack the corporations on their patriotism and ask them way they hate the American workers. Strip the tax breaks for off-shoring and penalize them. Instead all he did was kiss Wall St. and Chamber of Commerce ass. Too late now Mr. President. The damage is already done.

[harun]

6. I reluctantly have to agree, we are in election silly season now. Should have been done day 1.

[unblock]

7. too late now? so your suggestion is that he do what, today, instead?

i hear your point about what he could have done earlier, i don't entirely disagree, either.
maybe even obama has his regrets, who knows.

but TODAY, isn't this a good proposal?
or do you have something better in mind?

[Hotler]

10. Fuck the tax breaks for in-shoring. Strip the tax breaks for off-shoring now and

penalize the companies intead. This business that we the people have to pay the corporations to do what is right for the benefit of the nation and cities is bullshit. If the CEO's don't like it they can move their head guarters and THEIR families to fucking China or where ever. City councils across the country have been ramming tax breaks, zoning variances and give aways to companies down the throats of the citizens for years in the name of economic development. All it has done is kill the mom and pop businesses and drive down wages. It does very little good for the commons.

[BumRushDaShow]

9. "we had control of the house and senate then"

Unfortunately "we" did not "have control" over people like:

1.) Max Baucus
2.) Mary Landrieu
3.) Evan Bayh
4.) Joe LIEberman
5.) Blanche Lincoln
6.) Ben Nelson

and all the other blue dogs, half of whom are gone now along with control of the House and a chunk of the Senate.

IMHO, the continual trumpeting of "we had control" and knee-jerk blaming the President, is a non sequitur as it does not, in any manner, represent the reality of the time. Not ONE piece of truly progressive legislation would be able to pass through that bluedog blockade. They gave Dems the chairmanships by virtue of the "D" but otherwise controlled the progressiveness (and lack thereof) of the legislation through their loud minority, by siding with the enemy and extorting favors for passage of anything even resembling the intended purpose.

[Hotler]

11. If Obama had a spine and some fight in him and acted like..

leader he would have called those six into his office and chewed some ass, tell them to get on board and act like progressives instead of repug light.

[PragmaticLiberal]

16. How do we know he didn't?

[Summer Hathaway]

40. An approach that would

of course have changed their minds, caused them to shake uncontrollably, and swear to think differently in future.

[savalez]

14. Plus, his crystal ball was in shop so

he didn't know that voters would actually believe the Right Wing bullshit in the 2010 election. You know, the one that made Boner house leader. I remember him jokingly saying that the Republican's whole campaign was based on voter amnesia.

[crim son]

42. Give me a BREAK!

After eight years of the shrub, anybody who didn't anticipate that was, and is a fool. Obama is no fool, whatever else he may be.

[savalez]

44. Consider THIS!

I said that in the first week of his Presidency he didn't know the house would shift to the Republicans in two years. Thus the crystal ball reference. "Anticipate" is your word, not mine.

[hootinholler]

15. So we shouldn't ever try?

How about making them own it? How about making the R minority and the blue dogs own their obstructionism?

How about being able to go to the public in 2010 and say Here's what I tried to do, here's who stopped it. Give me people who are willing to work for the country.

When you have the high ground, you don't abandon it. When you don't you can't gain it from triangulation.

[Hotler]

24. Yes we should try and now is better than never, but

is it to much to wish that President Obama get a little pissed and angry and show it? I would have liked to hear that he called the titans of industry into his office, slammed the door, threw some chairs around, did some yelling and chewed some fucking ass. Maybe at least once lean over and wisper in Boners or McConnell's ear "you know, I can kick your fucking ass" and then walk away like nothing happened. Cheney didn't have a problem telling people to go fuck themselves in the senate hallway. Patrick Leahy should have punched Cheney in the mouth for that. It's called standing up to assholes and bullies

[savalez]

18. He addressed the problem in early 2009

"Leveling the playing field"

"There is no higher economic priority for President Obama than creating new, well-paying jobs in the United States. Yet today, our tax code actually provides a competitive advantage to companies that invest and create jobs overseas compared to those that invest and create those same jobs in the U.S. In addition, our tax system is rife with opportunities to evade and avoid taxes through offshore tax havens:"

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/leveling-the-playing-field-curbing-tax-havens-and-removing-tax-incentives-for-shifting-jobs-overseas/

I'm sure the first week of his Presidency was consumed by the Bush recession and the boat loads of jobs being lost on a weekly basis. So this was a few months in.

How did this all pan out? With zero research what-so-ever I'd wager congressional Republicans and the usual handful of Democratic turncoats fucked it up somehow.

But, I don't think it's ever too late to stimulate jobs right here in America.

[patrice]

25. Perhaps that would have tied these resources to some bad actors who are now less able

to make those resources hostage to their foreign masters.

The Derivative Crash of '08 did not result in a static situation. The losses have been in the process of what banks & financial institutions refer to as work-out(s) ever since.

[patrice]

26. The MYTH of progressive Democratic majorities . . .

http://blog.reidreport.com/2011/07/myth-of-progressive-majority/

[wordpix]

34. agree but now that we're in THIS election cycle, we have Bain offshore tax havens to dovetail nicely

PERFECT for O's running and getting elected x2. Rmoney is out there with his corporate raider background and not many people know yet about Bain's role in sheltering investors with tax havens in the Caymans and Bermuda. "While we're going to stop outsourcing jobs, we also need to stop outsourcing tax dollars by way of shell companies like Bain in Bermuda..."

It's going to be a great election!

[Honeycombe8]

37. Things were a little busy when he took office, if you recall.

The country was teetering on the edge of a cliff called The Second Great Depression. Banks were on the brink of failing which would have ushered in the 2nd Great Depression. Manufacturers were failing, which would have put hundreds of thousands of people out of work. We were losing about 175,000 jobs a month. We were in freefall. All of this added to the already existing crisis of millions of people suffering and dying from lack of healthcare. Add to this the real estate market crumbling.

So there were quite a lot of things to do. Maybe he'd do things differently, if he had it to do over. Maybe you would do things differently, or I would. One thing's for sure...no matter what he had done, many would still be critical of what he did NOT do (since everything could not be done). And no matter what you or I had done, many would be critical of that.

I'm certain, though, that he did what he thought he should do, and could be done, at the time. And he did what he thought was necessary to prevent an all-out Second Great Depression. He succeeded.

[savalez]

41. Yup.

The idea that he did not set out to do something about outsourcing is not correct. He outline his goals here just a few months into his presidency:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/leveling-the-playing-field-curbing-tax-havens-and-removing-tax-incentives-for-shifting-jobs-overseas/

[PearliePoo2]

8. This makes so much sense, it's a "no-brainer".

It should resonate very favorably with the American people.
The problem is, there will be a big push back with all the corporate money weighing in.
"Corporations are people too", says Mittens.
Thanks Supremes....

[mopinko]

13. he was talking about this in the speech he gave here in chicago

the other day. said he had a bunch of ceo's of large and small companies at the white house to discuss what incentives would make this happen. said he was very optimistic.

[wordpix]

33. instead of just speaking with CEOs, I hope he's speaking with the unemployed

They vote, too

[droidamus2]

21. This is the way it should be done

Obama has figured out that we need to go back to the way the tax system used to be structured. By that I mean use taxes to get businesses to do what you want and what is good for the country as a hole not to kiss ass to those same businesses by giving them tax breaks that are nothing but another way for CEO's and other fat cats to fill their bank accounts with more money. Tax breaks as incentives to 'good' behavior is the way to go as well as raising taxes as a disincentive for 'bad' behavior. The trick is to do it in a way that the corporations can't game the system by being awarded for good behavior when the were guilty of egregious levels of 'bad' behavior in the past. On the other hand if you have companies that have outsourced large numbers of jobs but are willing to bring them back with the tax incentives that would be good. You would have to protect against companies 'insourcing' jobs long enough to get some tax benefits and then turning around and laying those people off and outsourcing the jobs again.

[yardwork]

22. Good.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

27. In the 2008 campaign season, he promised to propose a tax credit for job-creating efforts.

He promised in 2008 to propose a refundable "Making Work Pay Credit" of 6.2 percent of earnings up to a maximum earnings of $8,100 per worker.
http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxtopics/election_issues_matrix.cfm

In addition, he promised in 2008 to propose a refundable $3,000-per-employee-credit for increases in employment for firms with growing employment.
http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxtopics/election_issues_matrix.cfm

If he really wanted insourcing, why did he recently send the job-killing "Free Trade Agreements" with South Korea, Columbia, and Panama to the Senate?

For those who need to hold their nose and vote for him because he's not Rmoney (or whoever), OK. But what do you do with those voters who remember: "Fool me once, ..."?

[ncdem01]

28. A better idea

How about having the federal government refuse contracts with any company outsourcing jobs? Or at least, no non-US labor involved in federal government contracts, all work must be done by US labor.

This would have a real effect on companies doing outsourcing - a huge loss in business for some...

[paparush]

31. Wonderful ideas.

Shame it takes, balls and leadership. Elements sorely lacking in our party.

[paparush]

30. About f-ing time.

I mean, c'mon, this isn't rocket science.

Obama's failure in the bully pulpit has been one of my biggest disappointments in his first term.

[wordpix]

32. can't wait to hear the repugs' response

"We think Congress should extend the outsourcing indefinitely until everyone in America has no job"

[shanti]

35. what does he mean "proposes"?

he promised this when he was running in 2008.

[Kablooie]

38. Sounds like he's been saving up all his "change" for the re-election season.

Makes one wonder.

Did he just decide to do these things now or did he plan then a long time ago?

If he planned them a long time ago, why wait until now to bring them up?

If they are new ideas, why? These things were obviously needed years ago.

Did he hold off just so he could use them as campaign ammunition?

Does he expect any of his new proposals to pass or are they simply empty campaign promises that are never expected to go anywhere?

He's suddenly becoming more of the president we voted for just when election season is upon us.

After the election will he pat all his Wall Street cronies on the back and put all these new proposals back up on the shelf?

[chervilant]

39. Ah, yes...

Act II, Scene 4 of the Kabuki theater we call 'government.' I can just envision the players sitting around the oval office, hashing out plot details: "It's election year, kids, and we've got to WOW the crowd!"

I am so NOT impressed!

[Poll_Blind]

45. "Insourcing"? After signing a 3-country free trade agreement 3 months ago? Bullshit kabuki. nt

PB

[annabanana]

46. The very fact that there still ARE incentives to outsource

is disgusting...