We welcome you to JobBank USA and hope your job hunting experience
is a pleasant one. We hope you find our resources useful.
October 3, 2008
WASHINGTON - Americans concerned about their job security have a choice in the Nov. 4 election between two presidential candidates with different approaches to trade, job creation, job retraining and the promotion of “green jobs.”
McCain’s agenda focuses on low tax rates to help companies grow and create jobs. He wants to cut the top corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 25 percent, which he says will keep them from moving to countries with lower tax rates. He wants to keep the tax rate for individuals in the top tax bracket at 35 percent.
Obama has no plan to cut corporate tax rates. His campaign advisers have argued that most small businesses already qualify for a lower 25 percent corporate tax rate, and Obama has said he would end the favorable tax treatment companies get for relocating overseas.
He would allow the top individual income tax rate to revert back to the 39.6 percent imposed during the Clinton administration. Obama has criticized the “trickle down” theory that helping the wealthy will improve the lives of those lower on the economic ladder.
On trade, McCain believes ”we ought to continue to have the ability to negotiate fair access to the 95 percent of the world’s consumers that are outside the U.S.,” said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, the Arizona Republican’s senior policy adviser. “We need to be able to sell to those consumers.”
”Overall, Senator Obama supports trade, and he believes that we need to be engaging the global economy and expanding markets for our exports,” said Brian Deese, an economic adviser to the Illinois Democrat. “But he believes that our agreements must help our workers and our businesses as well as workers and businesses in other countries.”
For example, Obama would ask the Mexican and Canadian governments to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement to include new labor and environmental provisions — a move McCain does not endorse.
The two candidates have opposite positions on a free trade treaty with Colombia negotiated by the Bush administration that’s awaiting congressional approval.
McCain favors the pact with Colombia, which already has tariff-free access to U.S. markets. Moreover, Canada recently negotiated a trade agreement with Colombia and is developing new markets for its goods while U.S. goods still face costly tariffs collected by the Colombian government, according to Holtz-Eakin.
Obama opposes the pact because of violence against Colombian union organizers, some of whom have been murdered.
Obama would help small businesses grow by increasing funding for the Small Business Administration to help them get government contracts and gain access to capital. He also would fund community incubator projects.
Because trade can result in job layoffs and factory closings, both candidates have offered ideas on retraining workers and expanding the current federal Trade Adjustment Assistance program.
”We would have a single comprehensive training initiative that would allocate dollars out of a half dozen programs into a single program that works,” said McCain adviser Holtz-Eakin. The unemployed would be eligible for training regardless of what industry they worked in.
Obama would not require that an unemployed worker prove that he or she lost a job due to international trade in order to receive retraining, as is the case now. And he has proposed $300 million in annual funding for community colleges to work with local businesses and doubling the Hope tax credit to $4,000 to help pay for the cost of college.
Both candidates say their plans to expand health insurance coverage also would help small businesses by relieving them of what has been an escalating expense.
Obama would offer small businesses a tax credit for up to half the cost of employee health insurance. McCain wants to give families tax credits to buy health coverage.
Both candidates say future “green jobs” could be created if U.S. businesses and the government invest in renewable fuels like wind and solar energy.
McCain backs legislation that would limit greenhouse gas emissions through a system where polluters could trade for credits and that would encourage new technological advances.
Obama’s goal would be the creation of 5 million ”green jobs” over the next 10 to 15 years through a range of policies that would include loans to automakers for retooling their factories and requiring utilities to acquire a percentage of their electricity from renewable sources.
Email This Page!