Free Republic

No one ever doubted Donald Trump’s talent for theater, a gift he is exercising with some flair in the matter of the Carrier air-conditioner company’s facilities in Indiana. Carrier had planned to move a furnace operation to Mexico and to shutter a plant in Huntington, Ind., where it manufactures electronic controls. After the intervention of President-elect Trump and Governor Mike Pence, Carrier has agreed to keep the furnace operation going in Indiana, albeit with several hundred fewer employees. It still will close the electronics plant and offshore those 700 or so jobs. It will move about 600 jobs from the...

Because market freedoms create an environment for economic growth, thriving businesses and job creation, many people confuse "pro-market policies" with "pro-business" favors. But they aren't the same thing, and President-elect Trump hurts his own agenda when he conflates the two. He did so at the Indiana Carrier plant Thursday, when he announced a deal to keep some Mexico-bound Carrier jobs in Indiana. The deal is bad policy because it is loaded with at least $7 million in corporate welfare. It's bad politics because it rhetorically demolishes the crucial distinction between free-market policy on one hand, which benefits all businesses and...

No sooner had president-elect Trump announced a deal had been reached with air conditioner manufacturer Carrier to keep 1,100 manufacturing jobs in Indiana rather than being shipped to Mexico, the usual suspects began chattering about “corporate welfare”, “crony capitalism”, and the hypocritical picking of winners and losers. Carrier is an established business, not a pipe dream like the green energy failures President Obama subsidized like Solyndra. It is one of many U.S. businesses struggling to survive in the Obama era of high taxes and oppressive regulation. Trump has promised to cut corporate taxes and eliminate oppressive and job-killing regulations, but...

During a shouting matching Thursday night between top aides of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, the President-elect’s campaign manager Kellyanne Conway summed up a key reason for why my Democratic Party lost – and will likely continue to lose. “There’s a difference for voters between what offends you and what affects you.” To understand what she meant, look to the recent developments in Indiana. Millions of voters in the Rust Belt are in awe as 1,100 of their fellow blue-collar workers at Carrier narrowly missed being laid off. Instead of training Mexican replacements, these Hoosiers are celebrating an American paycheck....

Does she not know that Trump assured Carrier that he'll reduce the regulatory climate and lower taxes across the board, which will help not only Carrier but all American businesses overall. How is this crony capitalism? As far as tax credits or subsidies are concerned, those came from the state of IN. The point is, is that now's not the time to be engaging in this self-defeating crap. Trump already got his hands full by fighting off Hillary from stealing the election from him and walking on eggshells while Obola is still in the WH. Discuss this privately with Trump...

Former Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin, who is reportedly under consideration for a spot in President-elect Donald Trump’s administration, criticized Trump’s recent deal with Carrier to keep jobs in the United States. Trump visited the Carrier plant in Indianapolis on Thursday and touted the deal during a speech after the visit in front of a Carrier banner. Carrier will keep about 1,000 jobs in Indiana, instead of moving them to Mexico. In exchange, the state of Indiana is giving the company about $7 million in incentives. Vice president-elect Mike Pence in the current governor of Indiana. “When government steps in...

I am ecstatic for Carrier employees! Their bosses just decided to keep shop onshore. What a relief for hundreds of workers. Merry Christmas Indiana! We don't yet know terms of the public/private deal that was cut to make the company stay, but let's hope every business is equally incentivized to keep Americans working in America. Foundational to our exceptional nation's sacred private property rights, a business must have freedom to locate where it wishes. In a free market, if a business makes a mistake (including a marketing mistake that perhaps Carrier executives made), threatening to move elsewhere claiming efficiency's sake,...

Sarah Palin is criticizing President-elect Donald Trump’s deal with Carrier, even as she is reportedly under consideration to serve as Trump's secretary of Veterans Affairs. In a op-ed in Young Conservatives published Friday, the former Alaska governor first expresses excitement for the Carrier employees whose jobs are staying in Indiana. “What a relief for hundreds of workers,” she wrote. “Merry Christmas Indiana!” But she goes onto to blast the deal as “crony capitalism" and an example of the "hallmark of corruption" and "socialism." “When government steps in arbitrarily with individual subsidies, favoring one business over others, it sets inconsistent, unfair,...

One particularly tough and indigestible nugget of talk-radio stupidity afflicting the guts of conservatism is the idea that there is some sort of fundamental difference between bribing a business with tax cuts and bribing it with a wheelbarrow full of cash. The Trump-Pence bailout of Carrier’s operations in Indiana provides an illustrative case... Republicans might have had a little bit of a point in the question of general tax cuts: A tax cut and spending are different things, even if the budgetary effects are exactly the same. But in the matter of industry-specific or firm-specific tax benefits of the sort...

When government steps in arbitrarily with individual subsidies, favoring one business over others, it sets inconsistent, unfair, illogical precedent. Meanwhile, the invisible hand that best orchestrates a free people’s free enterprise system gets amputated. Then, special interests creep in and manipulate markets. Republicans oppose this, remember? Instead, we support competition on a level playing field, remember? Because we know special interest crony capitalism is one big fail.

Nice little company you got there. Wouldn’t want to see nuthin’ happen to it . . . CNN’s Alisyn Camerota suggested this morning that Donald Trump used a “threat” against United Technologies to get its Carrier subsidiary to agree to keep manufacturing jobs in Indiana. Even the Indianapolis Star reporter who had criticized the deal as being “an extremely expensive campaign promise” took issue with Camerota’s suggestion of a “threat.” CNN: the network that would depict President-elect Trump as using mob-boss tactics. View the video here.

In his speech at Carrier yesterday (video embedded below), Donald Trump revealed some information that should comfort those market purists worried about America insulating itself from global markets and thereby falling behind overseas competitors. He revealed that the reported $16 million is likely to end up a much higher figure because the company is committing to next-generation manufacturing. It is quite understandable that a lowball figure has been used by Carrier, as they want to limit what they may be on the hook to spend. They can always spend more, and the banter Trump threw at the company’s president indicates...

MONTERREY, Mexico (Reuters) - U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's intervention to stop jobs at a plant in Indiana going to Mexico is typical of what happens in countries that Americans call "banana" republics, a senior Mexican state official said on Thursday. Carrier, a unit of United Technologies Corp , said on Thursday that state officials had pledged $7 million in tax breaks to encourage the firm to keep around 1,100 jobs in Indianapolis after Trump stepped in to protect U.S. workers. A heating and air-conditioning company, Carrier said in February it would cut some 2,100 jobs in closing two Indiana plants...

The deal that President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President-elect Mike Pence brokered to keep Carrier jobs in Indiana likely hinges on its parent company's fear about losing business with the federal government, said an official who will play a critical role in approving the agreement. Trump and Pence will visit Indiana on Thursday to announce they’ve delivered on a campaign promise to keep about 1,000 factory jobs from moving to Monterrey, Mexico. The agreement reportedly includes $7 million in state tax breaks over ten years offered by the Indiana Economic Development Corporation, a quasi-public entity that doesn't require legislative approval...

Indiana agreed to give United Technologies $7 million in financial incentives over a decade to persuade the industrial giant to keep roughly 1,000 Carrier jobs in the state, Carrier said Thursday. Carrier, United Technologies' heating and air conditioning unit, had planned to close a furnace plant in the state and move it to Mexico. Carrier will invest about $16 million in Indiana to keep operations there, a source told NBC News. In a statement Thursday, Carrier said the financial incentives are "contingent upon factors including employment, job retention and capital investment." The company said Wednesday that state "incentives" were "an...

There's no doubt Team Trump is delighted by Carrier's decision to keep in Indiana roughly half of the 2,100 jobs that the maker of heating and air conditioning equipment had planned to shift to Mexico. As Steven Mnuchin, Trump's pick for treasury secretary, told CNBC yesterday, "This is a great first win without us even having to take the job." Actually, it's their second win. Trump also lobbied/nudged/cajoled Ford into changing its mind about shifting a sport utility vehicle production line to Mexico from Kentucky, not that doing so actually would have cost American jobs. But Carrier, especially, had become...

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump visits a factory in Indiana on Thursday to kick off a "thank you tour" and celebrate his role in persuading air conditioner maker Carrier Corp to preserve around 1,000 jobs in the state rather than move them to Mexico.

Indiana officials agreed to give United Technologies Corp. $7 million worth of tax breaks over 10 years to encourage the company’s Carrier Corp. unit to keep about 1,000 jobs in the state, according to people familiar with the matter. The heating and air conditioning company will invest about $16 million to keep its operations in the state, including a furnace plant in Indianapolis that it had previously planned to close and shift...

Today, about 1,000 Carrier workers and their families should be rejoicing. But the rest of our nation’s workers should be very nervous. President-elect Donald Trump will reportedly announce a deal with United Technologies, the corporation that owns Carrier, that keeps less than 1,000 of the 2100 jobs in America that were previously scheduled to be transferred to Mexico. Let’s be clear: It is not good enough to save some of these jobs. Trump made a promise that he would save all of these jobs, and we cannot rest until an ironclad contract is signed to ensure that all of these...

This is the second Carrier employee to go on the record praising Donald Trump in two days. These folks are extremely grateful to Trump for saving their jobs and many of them are Democrats! This man’s name is Rick Link. He’s a lifelong Democrat who voted for Trump and he’s pretty happy about keeping his job. On FOX and Friends, Steve Doocy asked him why he voted for Trump and he said: “He spoke to me. He hit a chord inside me, he was talking to the working man. He was talking to the middle class. And you know, we’re...