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Taxpayers Always Lose Industry’s Shell Game With Jobs. Like GM.

davidhume

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When General Motors announced that it was idling five plants in the United States and Canada last week, there was shock in two American cities.

One was Warren, Ohio, where G.M. builds the Chevrolet Cruze at its Lordstown assembly plant. Folks in the industrial heartland are no strangers to this kind of betrayal. But after forking over $60 million in state and local incentives in the last decade, they believed they had done enough to get G.M. to maintain Lordstown, which has built 16.3 million vehicles since 1966.

The Republicans promised that last year’s tax cut would prompt investment that creates jobs — G.M. got a $157 million tax bonus through its third quarter — but corporations have also used that money to cover the expenses of closing plants. (So far this year, companies in the United States have cut about a half million jobs, 28 percent more than at the same time last year.)

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/07/opinion/gm-amazon-honeywell-tax-incentives.html

This is one of the major issues of our time. Corporations get tax breaks and don't do anything in return for them. Socialism!!
 
You know it's sad for the workers. Good paying jobs leaving the area. However someone (like congress) needs to hold them to their word of job training. Hopefully every person there can get some training in a new field where robots are going to replace them like in the auto industry.
My problem with all these closings is no one holds these companies accountable for what happens after they close.
 
You know it's sad for the workers. Good paying jobs leaving the area. However someone (like congress) needs to hold them to their word of job training. Hopefully every person there can get some training in a new field where robots are going to replace them like in the auto industry.
My problem with all these closings is no one holds these companies accountable for what happens after they close.

Agree. Why the editorial in the New York Times is important. Like the recent Amazon deal. Who's doing the accounting to show they deserve public money to move to their state?
 
In GM's defense

The plants it will be closing are under vastly under capacity, producing cars that have declined in sales drastically over the last 3 years despite being generally recent designs (newer in design than comparable models cut by Ford).

GM in order to remain profitable, and continue employing people in the US needed to make cuts. Closing plants that produce cars that are not selling is the logical step in that regard. Or in the next recession GM could ask for another bailout or close up entirely

Of course I disagree with GM and Ford's decision to get rid of nearly all sedan sales in the US. Between the two of them that is approx 700 000 in sales (2017) that they are partially giving up on. Some of course will go to the SUV offerings of Ford and GM, but a lot will go to the Asian brands who are all still producing cars. Ford at least will still have cars in its European operations that it could bring to the US should the market shift again. GM will not, it no longer has European operations so it will not likely have cars that it could quickly bring to the US market should consumer demands change.
 
When General Motors announced that it was idling five plants in the United States and Canada last week, there was shock in two American cities.

One was Warren, Ohio, where G.M. builds the Chevrolet Cruze at its Lordstown assembly plant. Folks in the industrial heartland are no strangers to this kind of betrayal. But after forking over $60 million in state and local incentives in the last decade, they believed they had done enough to get G.M. to maintain Lordstown, which has built 16.3 million vehicles since 1966.

The Republicans promised that last year’s tax cut would prompt investment that creates jobs — G.M. got a $157 million tax bonus through its third quarter — but corporations have also used that money to cover the expenses of closing plants. (So far this year, companies in the United States have cut about a half million jobs, 28 percent more than at the same time last year.)

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/07/opinion/gm-amazon-honeywell-tax-incentives.html

This is one of the major issues of our time. Corporations get tax breaks and don't do anything in return for them. Socialism!!

The only real lesson in all this is that tax law should be separated from economics or political considerations.

In other words...one tax code that applies the same across the board. No businesses are given any special consideration.

That way, business decisions can only be laid at the feet of those businesses...not at the feet of the government.

In other words...less government.
 
This is one of the major issues of our time. Corporations get tax breaks and don't do anything in return for them. Socialism!! Trumpism!!

Fixed that for ya :thumbs:
 
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