Trump crushes Obama on ‘answer’ to keeping Carrier jobs: tax relief
Supporters are rallying around Donald Trump after news broke that he and Vice President-elect Mike Pence have persuaded the Carrier Corporation to keep 1,000 manufacturing jobs in Indianapolis instead of moving them to Mexico.
Pence, governor of Indiana, worked with local officials to provide tax relief and Fox noted that “Trump hinted that Carrier’s parent company United Technologies, which derives some 10 percent of its $56 billion in revenues from the federal government, would do well to play ball with the incoming administration.”
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The Obama administration seemed to mock the Trump move as Press Secretary Josh Earnest said that the White House was pleased that the jobs were staying, then he added: “If [Trump] is successful in doing that 804 more times, then he will meet the record number of manufacturing jobs” created during Obama’s eight years in office.
Earnest went further, saying that the roughly 800,000 jobs he cited were new jobs created under Obama’s watch. He said the president protected “more than a million” additional manufacturing jobs in the Midwest with his bailout of the auto industry.
“The one difference would be the president-elect is talking about protecting jobs,” he said. “The metric I’m using is actually creating jobs.”
On June 1, 2016, Barack Obama held a town hall event on PBS News Hour and attacked Trump for wanting to keep Carrier jobs in the United States: “There’s no answer to it…”
“He just says, ‘Well, I’m going to negotiate a better deal.’ Well, how — what — how exactly are you going to negotiate that? What magic wand do you have? And usually, the answer is he doesn’t have an answer.”
Well less taxes appear to be the answer.
Full transcript and video below.
Via PBS Newshour – Presidential Town Hall June 1, 2016:
ERIC COTTONHAM, Carrier Employee: How are you doing, Mr. President?
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: How are you?
ERIC COTTONHAM: My name is Eric Cottonham and I’m representing the Steelworkers Union, Local 1999. And I’m trying to find out, what do we have left far us — all of our jobs are leaving Indianapolis. I see here you’re doing a lot of things, but in Indianapolis, there’s nothing there for us. I mean, what’s next? I mean, what can we look forward to in the future as far as jobs, employment, whatever? Because all of our jobs has left or in the process of leaving, sir.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Well, in fact, we’ve seen more manufacturing jobs created since I’ve been president than anytime since the 1990s. That’s a fact. And you know, if you look at just the auto industry as an example, they’ve had record sales and they’ve hired back more people over the last five years than they have for a very long, long time.
(…)
But for those folks who have lost their job right now because a plant went down the Mexico, that isn’t going to make you feel better. And so what we have to do is to make sure that folks are trained for the jobs that are coming in now because some of those jobs of the past are just not going to come back, and when somebody says, like the person you just mentioned who I’m not going to advertise for, that he’s going to bring all these jobs back, well how exactly are you going to do that? What are you going to do?
There’s — there’s no answer to it. He just says, “Well, I’m going to negotiate a better deal.” Well, how — what — how exactly are you going to negotiate that? What magic wand do you have? And usually, the answer is he doesn’t have an answer.
