I understand my opponent has been running around Ohio claiming he’s going to roll up his sleeves and he’s going to take the fight to China. Now, here’s the thing. His experience has been owning companies that were called ‘pioneers’ in the business of outsourcing jobs to countries like China. He made money investing in companies that uprooted from here and went to China. Pioneers. Now, Ohio, you can’t stand up to China when all you’ve done is send them our jobs.
The Carrier Plant employs 1,400! The company executives defended the move to Mexico by saying it was an economic decision to stay competitive.
The move will be completed by the end of 2017, and some 300 employees will stay behind at the Indiana office.
Let’s assume that the state government of Indiana tried to keep the plant and offered some incentives to do so. Did President Obama get involved? Did he go to Congress and offer a tax reform package that allows a company to make “the economic decision” to stay in the U.S.?
We cannot be a great country if companies move their manufacturing operations somewhere else.
It should be a very high priority for the next administration to reverse this outflow of jobs. I’m not talking speeches about making America great again, but a restructuring of our tax policies so that staying here is profitable to stockholders and workers.
As a young man, I remember driving around south Wisconsin and seeing towns full of manufacturing activity. They made tractors, auto engines, air conditioner units, and so on. They also employed men and women!
A few years ago, I drove around Monterrey, Mexico, and I saw the same company names and manufacturing activity. Who moved Janesville to Mexico?
How did we allow this to happen? I don’t blame Mexico. I blame misguided U.S. policies and companies too focused on their P/L statements.
