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This is totally unrealistic. This guy is laughing in peoples faces. 10 million jobs...
MSNBC
Updated: 6:31 p.m. ET March 26, 2004By launching his economic program with a plan to cut corporate taxes, Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry aims to steal one of President Bush’s favorite themes while keeping attention focused on the hot-button issue of offshoring U.S. jobs.
Kerry, the presumed Democratic nominee, laid down the first plank of an economic platform Friday that he said would create 10 million jobs in four years — in sharp contrast to the 2.2 million jobs that have been lost since Bush took office.
“America cannot afford four more years of a president who is the first to lose jobs since Herbert Hoover in the Great Depression,” Kerry said at a rally in Detroit where he unveiled a sweeping plan to restructure corporate taxes. The plan would eliminate a feature of the tax code that offers favored treatment for large multinationals that expand overseas, allowing their overseas profits to be taxed at foreign rates that are typically far lower than U.S. levels.
While the plan already faces opposition from powerful business lobbying groups, Kerry deftly aimed to undermine his critics by tying the plan to a 5 percent reduction in the corporate tax — from 35 percent to 33.25 percent.
John Zogby, an independent political pollster, called it a “brilliant political stroke.”
“(It) kind of steals thunder from the Bush administration by portraying Kerry as a tax-cutter, albeit a fairer tax cutter, and with the prospect of jobs at the end of the road,” Zogby said. “It makes it very difficult for Bush to attack this.”
By proposing a cut in corporate taxes — as well as a tax “holiday” to encourage businesses to repatriate profits — Kerry is plucking a page from the politically centrist playbook that propelled President Clinton to two terms in office, Zogby said.
“This is the sort of thing that works in this kind of climate when things are so intensely partisan,” he said.
Indeed, in a conference call with reporters after Kerry’s speech, former Clinton adviser Roger Altman noted: “It’s quite remarkable for a Democrat to be proposing a reduction in corporate tax rates.”
Altman, a senior economic advisor to the Kerry campaign, said Friday’s speech was the first of at least three laying out the central planks of a program to restore economic competitiveness and create jobs. He said the promise of 10 million jobs over four years was reasonable, noting that the economy created more than 11.5 million jobs in the first four years of the Clinton administration.
“The overall thrust of Sen. Kerry’s whole economic policy is to make American employers more competitive,” Altman said. “He is going to do that by lowering their cost of doing business.”
MSNBC
Updated: 6:31 p.m. ET March 26, 2004By launching his economic program with a plan to cut corporate taxes, Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry aims to steal one of President Bush’s favorite themes while keeping attention focused on the hot-button issue of offshoring U.S. jobs.
Kerry, the presumed Democratic nominee, laid down the first plank of an economic platform Friday that he said would create 10 million jobs in four years — in sharp contrast to the 2.2 million jobs that have been lost since Bush took office.
“America cannot afford four more years of a president who is the first to lose jobs since Herbert Hoover in the Great Depression,” Kerry said at a rally in Detroit where he unveiled a sweeping plan to restructure corporate taxes. The plan would eliminate a feature of the tax code that offers favored treatment for large multinationals that expand overseas, allowing their overseas profits to be taxed at foreign rates that are typically far lower than U.S. levels.
While the plan already faces opposition from powerful business lobbying groups, Kerry deftly aimed to undermine his critics by tying the plan to a 5 percent reduction in the corporate tax — from 35 percent to 33.25 percent.
John Zogby, an independent political pollster, called it a “brilliant political stroke.”
“(It) kind of steals thunder from the Bush administration by portraying Kerry as a tax-cutter, albeit a fairer tax cutter, and with the prospect of jobs at the end of the road,” Zogby said. “It makes it very difficult for Bush to attack this.”
By proposing a cut in corporate taxes — as well as a tax “holiday” to encourage businesses to repatriate profits — Kerry is plucking a page from the politically centrist playbook that propelled President Clinton to two terms in office, Zogby said.
“This is the sort of thing that works in this kind of climate when things are so intensely partisan,” he said.
Indeed, in a conference call with reporters after Kerry’s speech, former Clinton adviser Roger Altman noted: “It’s quite remarkable for a Democrat to be proposing a reduction in corporate tax rates.”
Altman, a senior economic advisor to the Kerry campaign, said Friday’s speech was the first of at least three laying out the central planks of a program to restore economic competitiveness and create jobs. He said the promise of 10 million jobs over four years was reasonable, noting that the economy created more than 11.5 million jobs in the first four years of the Clinton administration.
“The overall thrust of Sen. Kerry’s whole economic policy is to make American employers more competitive,” Altman said. “He is going to do that by lowering their cost of doing business.”
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