The September jobs report and news related to National Disability Employment Awareness Month distracted attention away from one additional item following last week’s presidential debate. The delay was worthwhile, frankly, since there has been some attention paid to one particularly feisty exchange between President Barack Obama and GOP challenger Mitt Romney in the past few days. There are a lot of other topics addressed in between these two excerpts from the ABC News transcript, but here are the relevant statements put side by side:
OBAMA: Right now, you can actually take a deduction for moving a plant overseas. I think most Americans would say that doesn’t make sense. And all that raises revenue.
ROMNEY: Look, I’ve been in business for 25 years. I have no idea what you’re talking about. I maybe need to get a new accountant… But the idea that you get a break for shipping jobs overseas is simply not the case.
As it turns out, both of these seemingly contradictory remarks are true. Jim Puzzanghera pointed out how in his October 4 Los Angeles Times article. Even though companies can claim a deduction for “relocation of business units,” as stated by Obama, this is an applicable deduction to any relocation effort; thus, the former governor of Massachusetts can retort with veracity that there are no tax benefits for specifically moving a business overseas.
If the Obama administration’s corporate tax reform plan had passed, it would have given further incentive to re-locate business operations on American shores. But as Puzzanghera’s colleague Lisa Mascaro noted in July, the Bring Jobs Home Act did not survive a Republican filibuster even though four GOP senators, including Scott Brown of Massachusetts, broke party ranks to voted in favor of the measure.
Puzzanghera closes his article by pointing out that the Bring Jobs Home Act would have a negligible financial impact with regards to tax revenue. But such a shrug-of-the-shoulders observation omits the intended goal of closing the loophole, which is to encourage U.S. Business to outsource to Americans for their contract labor needs. Moving a plant overseas gives the business a deduction and eliminates the tax revenue generated by those jobs. Hiring U.S. citizens to do everything from the high-end manufacturing processes to logistical tasks like light assembly, sorting, packaging, and fulfillment can strengthen blue and white collar Americans alike.
What’s more, when a company hires a contract labor service that employs people with disabilities, they are making life matter for these individuals by helping them learn important job skills and live more independently. Those are the kind of results almost every U.S. citizen would like to see.
Comments?
Image by NObamaNoMas.
Thanks for linking to the LA Times article – I was curious how both candidates could be “technically correct” for their assertions.