Posted on 02/18/2013 7:45:43 AM PST by Cringing Negativism Network
OK let me offer an idea, contrary to what seems now to be the thought of everyone in both parties.
Americans need to make things.
China has now become the world's largest exporter. That happened several years ago now.
We are unsurprizingly, the largest importer.
What is worse is China continues to grow, and we continue to shrink.
NOBODY is doing one thing it would appear, to fix that.
We sell rack after rack of Chinese made goods in every single store in America.
Every one. And we just keep sending the production of everything out of America.
Wake up GOP. Turn this around. Be for American jobs.
Don’t you get tired of posting the same vanity over and over? You’ll simply get the same responses you’ve been getting all along.
Way more complicated than what it seems on the surface. Way too many raw materials are imported along with the tooling of manufacturing. You could end up pricing manufacturing out of the US by making the capital expenses necessary to conduct operations more expensive. We don’t need to tax imports, we need to make the country tax and regulation friendly to domestic business.
Attempting to social engineer in any way from the top, like this, usually ends up with the opposite result people expect.
1. China is not growing anymore.
2. China has hit the Lewis Turning point.
3. Taxing imports - Smoot-Hawley anyone?
OK, this is intended as satire, right?
...one more flaw, this trusts the government with more taxation and regulation power. It is like treating starvation by giving someone a gastric bypass.
Statist not.
Whatever criticism you have, a Statist I most certainly am not.
Having the highest corporate tax on the planet doesn’t help the US towards that goal. Trade wars will compound the mess.
My thinking exactly.
Nobody advised China.
As far as they (and I) know, China just became the world’s largest exporting powerhouse, and continues to grow.
I haven’t seen manufacturing be able to resurge under the US’ current tax regime. We have the highest corporate tax on the whole planet.
Attention CNN,
The root cause of this falls into several categories:
1. Attorneys. 85% of lawsuits worldwide are filed in the USA. If we exiled 3/5 of all attorneys in the USA, there’d still be too many. This is a huge drag on the economy and causes misallocation of business resources.
2. Ridiculous number of laws and regulations. So far this year alone, the current administration has put into effect more than 5,000 additional laws. Businesses have no way of knowing what is the law. Departments have rule-making authority and make rules non-stop. This is a huge burden to every American.
3. Ridiculous tax structure that makes it cheaper to go almost anywhere else in the world.
4. Unions - public and private - are sucking the lifeblood out of all of us as taxpayers.
5. Out of control government growth at all levels.
We are being gutted. Do not be shocked or surprised that businesses are trying to survive, by arbitraging governments against each other.
My next business will be overseas.
I’m all for bringing manufacturing back to America but you’ve got to be very careful about import tariffs. Reagan used very specifically targeted import tariffs with great effect but he certainly didn’t just wave his hand and decree import tariffs on all things. That would have been a disaster.
You’ve got to encourage investment in America without punishment.
You can’t tax imports. You can only tax those who buy imported goods. Exactly why do you wish to increase the taxes paid by your fellow citizens? Do you wish to lower their living standards?
The danger of treaties is they take away national sovereignty. The United States is a signatory to numerous treaties, including the Global Agreement on Taxes and Tariffs (GATT.) When GWB needed votes in Pennsylvania, he imposed a tax on imported steel. The United States was taken to an international court for a treaty violation and loss the case. This enabled our trading partners to tax whatever the heck they wanted from the United States until GWB rescinded the tariff. So, with great political acumen other nations targeted imports to their country coming from areas where GWB also needed votes. These were punitive tariffs. GWB was forced to rescind the steel tariff.
Your idea won’t work because the United States would be made to suffer much more than other countries would suffer for the imposition of your suggested tax (tariffs.)
Also, this has been tried before and always ends up in a destructive trade war. All sides lose.
To bring business back we need tort reform so specially protected types of people don’t get free (taxpayer paid) attorneys to sue for everything under the sun. Also, get rid of the punitive EPA and the alphabet soup of government and local agencies that only exist to further liberal political aims. Incredibly complex and onerous labor laws need modification and there’s a host of other governmental liabilities for owning a business in the US. Those are the things we can and should change.
Glad you brought up #3 - it was the not prime cause for the Depression but it made it last as long as it did. Read:http://americanhistory.about.com/od/greatdepression/f/smoot_hawley.htm
You may have a good idea. Goods are not expensive enough yet. People need to spend more. Millions on Welfare are depending upon us.
go back to your union hall and tell you union bretheren that we are not buying into the union line of thinking regarding free trade....
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