Candidate Donald Trump promised that American companies moving to other countries would face severe consequences if he became president. In his first effort at keeping that promise he is taking credit for brokering a deal in which Carrier Corp. is being given $7 million in tax credits by the state of Indiana in return for keeping about 1,000 jobs in that state rather than moving them to Mexico as planned.
My question is: How do I get in on those consequences? I could use $700,000 a year myself. Those are way better consequences than a chicken in every pot.
I’m very happy for those 1,000 families, especially at this time of year. But we need to look at this “deal” in a larger context.
We look to our President to create policies that will create jobs. While it’s fabulous to convince a company to remain in this country that’s not really the president’s job, and it’s not creating jobs or re-training yesterday’s workers for today’s jobs. Vice President-elect Mike Pence is still serving as governor of Indiana. He said that in March he basically offered Carrier the same deal and they turned it down.
So what changed?
Donald Trump was elected. Fortunately his vice president is Pence who could control the levers of the relevant state government and make the tax credits available.
And even though an individual, even the President, cannot muck around in government contracting – which is governed by about a bazillion regulations and rules so that the system is fair to both the government and the bidders -- apparently United Technologies (UT), which owns Carrier, was scared of ignoring the President-elect’s desires in this matter. To them, this “tiny” matter of saving $65 million by moving these jobs to Mexico did not match their concern about the tens of billions of dollars in contracts they have to build jet engines and the like. UT has about $60 BILLION dollars in revenue. If you do the math and figure out how much of $60 billion is $65 million it’s – well, not much.
A small price to pay to stay out of the White House's crosshairs.
Immediately after going to Carrier to bathe in the credit of saving those jobs, Trump moved on to Ohio to begin his “Donald Trump is Wonderful, Aren’t I” tour where he mostly ignored his script, and ad-libbed his way to again promising to build a wall (something since the election he has backed away from) and getting the crowd to chant “lock her up” (another promise he said he wouldn’t keep because the Clintons have been through too much already).
He spent a lot of time praising himself for his great wins in various states last month demonstrating how “they” lost and he “won.”
So when does the uniting, not dividing begin?
My question is: How do I get in on those consequences? I could use $700,000 a year myself. Those are way better consequences than a chicken in every pot.
I’m very happy for those 1,000 families, especially at this time of year. But we need to look at this “deal” in a larger context.
- While it’s great that Trump saved those jobs, is this really what we want our President spending his days on? The most important commodity a President has is his time and it must be spent on the most important issues of the day.
- An unfortunate consequence of this success is that it reinforces in Trump that “deal-making” is what works for the U.S. government. Running the government is not about the “deal” the vast majority of the time.
- Picking winners and losers among companies is a losing game for the federal government.
- How many companies now will use the Carrier experience as negotiating leverage against the government for their company?
- Now, who becomes, as one anonymous source said in the Washington Post this morning, the "next piñata" for Trump to beat up on to make a point?
- Let’s also remember that Trump admitted to forgetting all about that promise to Carrier until he watched the nightly news and saw a Carrier employee commenting on Mr. Trump’s promise. That’s when he kicked into gear, he admitted. What other promises has he forgotten since the campaign?
We look to our President to create policies that will create jobs. While it’s fabulous to convince a company to remain in this country that’s not really the president’s job, and it’s not creating jobs or re-training yesterday’s workers for today’s jobs. Vice President-elect Mike Pence is still serving as governor of Indiana. He said that in March he basically offered Carrier the same deal and they turned it down.
So what changed?
Donald Trump was elected. Fortunately his vice president is Pence who could control the levers of the relevant state government and make the tax credits available.
And even though an individual, even the President, cannot muck around in government contracting – which is governed by about a bazillion regulations and rules so that the system is fair to both the government and the bidders -- apparently United Technologies (UT), which owns Carrier, was scared of ignoring the President-elect’s desires in this matter. To them, this “tiny” matter of saving $65 million by moving these jobs to Mexico did not match their concern about the tens of billions of dollars in contracts they have to build jet engines and the like. UT has about $60 BILLION dollars in revenue. If you do the math and figure out how much of $60 billion is $65 million it’s – well, not much.
A small price to pay to stay out of the White House's crosshairs.
Immediately after going to Carrier to bathe in the credit of saving those jobs, Trump moved on to Ohio to begin his “Donald Trump is Wonderful, Aren’t I” tour where he mostly ignored his script, and ad-libbed his way to again promising to build a wall (something since the election he has backed away from) and getting the crowd to chant “lock her up” (another promise he said he wouldn’t keep because the Clintons have been through too much already).
He spent a lot of time praising himself for his great wins in various states last month demonstrating how “they” lost and he “won.”
So when does the uniting, not dividing begin?
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