A corporation's goal is not to create jobs; it is to generate higher profits. During a recession, the way you increase profits is by eliminating jobs and by outsourcing to a cheaper workforce. Even if tax incentives are given to higher more US labor, ie veterans, and if businesses didn't have to comply with EPA regulations, at an average hourly wage, in China, of 47 cents per hour (in US dollars, taken from US Bureau of Labor), what company is ignorant enough to believe that their profits will increase if jobs are brought back to the USA?
A great example is General Motors. GM now receives the most amazing tax incentive of all: no federal taxes! Upon receiving the most ultimate tax break in the nation, and after receiving a massive bailout package, what did GM do? They closed 13 US manufacturing plants and opened one in China.
Laissez Faire economics worked great when we had slave-labor--no labor costs. Laissez Faire economics worked great when we had child labor--criminally low, Chinese labor costs. But in a modern nation of morality, equal rights, and anti-child labor, the catalyst of a Laissez Faire economy cannot and should not be obtained. Those who continually urge us to reflect on the economic booms of our founding fathers, and of the industrial revolution, need to seriously reconsider their position on slavery.
Many will try to classify the Reagan years as being a major hands-off style of government. However, under the Reagan administration, the debt ceiling was raised 18 times, the Federal Reserve printed a ridiculous amount of money, causing inflation to grow more than it has in the past thirty years, and the national deficit went from 30% of our GDP to 60%. Moreover, the starting deficit percentage was on the heals of a recession with a very low GDP. The 60% deficit was during a crest in our GDP. That means our deficit was more than doubled! It grew exponentially! No other president has even come close to such a staggering number. Sure, taxes were cut, jobs were gained, and our production progressed. But the catalyst wasn't lower taxes, it wasn't deregulation, and it certainly wasn't cheaper labor. The catalyst was Ronald Reagan's blank check from a democratic congress. And it's the same people who praise Reaganomics who now want to cut government spending, and who freak out about Obama's 3rd raise in the debt ceiling, when Reagan raised it 18 times and Bush raised it 7 times.
Do you honestly believe that a decrease in taxes and regulations will excite people to move their workforce back to the United States?
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