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September 15, 2004

Kerry wants to be "CEO"

John Kerry has a column in the Wall Street Journal editorial page today. You can read it in the WSJ.COM Opinion Journal.
First of all, whoever wrote this for him should be fired. It is clichéd from the title to the last sentence. The title is, "My Economic Policy - A new CEO in Washington would be good for American business."
I'm sorry, but that sounds so much like a subject that my high school English Composition teacher gave us all to write about.

But that's just a petty objection - so the smart guy from Yale is a poor writer, or hires poor writers - so what.

75% of his article is just plain old Bush bashing. That turns me off immediately. He doesn't even mention the effect that the September 11th terrorist attacks had on our economy - he blames everything bad on Bush. But, that is to be expected from the people who have taken over the Democrat Party these days - anyone with a modicum of common sense has been stomped on by the Moore and Gore types.

What concerns me is this - he talks about closing 'tax loopholes' that are supposedly encouraging companies to create jobs overseas and then giving corporations a 5% tax cut.

I am not trying to stop all outsourcing, but as president, I will end every single incentive that encourages companies to outsource. Today, taxpayers spend $12 billion a year to subsidize the export of jobs

Details, Kerry, I want details - what, exactly, are these loopholes? Why is it so bad for American corporations to have overseas subsidiaries? The company I work for hires people in those countries where we have a presence rather than shipping Americans overseas - is Kerry going to tax them for doing that? Because in many cases, they have no choice - the cost of doing business in some countries is hiring people in that country.

He goes on a bit later:

My plan would take the entire $12 billion we save from closing these loopholes each year and use it to cut corporate tax rates by 5%. This will provide a tax cut for 99% of taxpaying corporations.

First of all, this leads me to ask just how many non-taxpaying corporations there are in this country - are they non-taxpaying because they are losing money, or because there are other tax loopholes that Mr. Kerry is not going to close? And more importantly, what about small businesses - they do business in other countries, too - are they going to be punished if they hire a Mexican trucker to haul merchandise to the United States?

Kerry also said this:

Yet what President Bush cannot explain is how the last 11 presidents before him--Democrats and Republicans--faced wars, recessions and international crises, and yet only he has presided over lost jobs, declining real exports, and the swing from a $5.6 trillion surplus to trillions of dollars of deficits.

On the face of it, you might think, wow, even World War II didn't make the economy that bad - but guess what - count back 11 presidents and you get to Harry Truman. Roosevelt is not even in the picture. And, Mr. Kerry - we are in World War III, whether you realize it or not.

Deficits are necessary during war - and to help an economy out of a recession. Bush's tax cuts kept us from going into a much deeper recession. No doubt about it.

And by using dollar figures rather than percentage of the GDP when talking about the deficit, Kerry disguises the fact that the deficit is only 4.2% of the GDP today - it was 6% in 1983. And in 1983, we were not in any wars, so Kerry's statement is misleading if not false.

I have to get ready for work - but in the interest of full disclosure, I am blogging nekkid in our third bedroom office - no pajamas here.

Posted by Beth at September 15, 2004 6:31 AM

Comments

Posted by: Teresa at September 15, 2004 3:23 PM

Posted by: Beth Donovan at September 15, 2004 6:00 PM