Tag Archives: Business

News

Caterpillar decides to not build its new manufacturing plant in Illinois

Leave a comment
Central United States
Central United States

From the Peoria Journal Star.

Excerpt:

Caterpillar Inc. will not be building its new North American plant anywhere in the state of Illinois, officials with the company told local leaders Tuesday, with part of the reason being continued concerns about the business climate in the state.

The company will instead focus on a location closer to its division headquarters in Cary, N.C., Peoria County officials were told in an email sent to them shortly after the close of business and later obtained by the Journal Star. The plant stood to bring with it from Japan roughly 1,000 jobs manufacturing track-type tractors and mini hydraulic excavators.

Peoria County had submitted a regional proposal for the facility at the end of last year, and the Galesburg area also had a proposal on the table for the manufacturer. Peoria’s proposal reportedly included economic incentives as well as a promise of a legislative effort to establish a tax increment financing district to benefit the company.

At its core, Caterpillar’s decision reflects some concerns its officials had previously expressed about the economic condition of the Land of Lincoln.

“Please understand that even if your community had the right logistics for this project, Caterpillar’s previously documented concerns about the business climate and overall fiscal health of the state of Illinois still would have made it unpractical for us to select your community for this project,” the letter reads in part. “Caterpillar intends to continue calling for long-term changes in Illinois and to offer help to the state as it works toward real and fundamental reforms that will position communities like yours to compete for future projects.”

And:

Still, the rejection didn’t come as much of a surprise to state Rep. David Leitch, R-Peoria.

“I think Caterpillar has been very frustrated by the state’s inability to improve the business climate,” he said. “I still think that workers’ comp is a very serious issue for Caterpillar and others. I think there’s great concern about the financial situation within the state itself. The precarious nature of the state’s finances and having the worst bond rating in the country and huge liabilities … have not been addressed.”

The decision to locate elsewhere — and the reasons for it — should serve as a wake-up call to the region and the state as a whole, Rand said.

“I think the lessons learned here shouldn’t read like recriminations but instead resonate like a call to action,” he said. “Perhaps someone in Springfield will take notice. It’s our job to make certain they do.

“You can’t move a mountain while wearing a pair of roller skates. The disadvantages Cat identifies in Illinois are all man-made. We have to make ourselves competitive. It won’t happen because of a wish.”

Illinois is one of the bluest states in the union – totally dominated by Democrats. It’s very important for working Americans to understand that a Democrat can stand up and complain about outsourcing and greed and corporations and income inequality until they are blue in the face. It doesn’t mean a thing. Democrats are for higher taxes and more regulations on businesses, and that’s what causes outsourcing. Democrats cause unemployment. It doesn’t matter what they say. What matters is how job creators respond to the incentives created by Democrat policies.

Commentary

Did Obama’s $800 billion dollar stimulus program stimulate the economy?

Leave a comment

The numbers are in.

Excerpt:

Recall the original Obama economic team. It consisted of President Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, and White House economists Lawrence Summers, Christina Romer, Austan Goolsbee, and Jared Bernstein. It was the Democrats’ Best and Brightest—but not one with a smidgen of executive experience in either the private or public sector. And into their hands was entrusted an $800 billion stimulus spending plan, a package whose details were fleshed out by Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi. What could go wrong?

Lots, it turns out. And Michael Grabell, a reporter for ProPublica, documents the many failings of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act in “Money Well Spent? The Truth Behind the Trillion-Dollar Stimulus, the Biggest Economic Recovery Plan in History,” out this week. Rather than focus on questionable Keynesian economics behind the stimulus, Grabell focuses on its execution and management.

In reporting on the stimulus over three years, I traveled to 15 states, interviewed hundreds of people and read through tens of thousands of government documents and project reports. What I found is that the stimulus failed to live up to its promise not because it was too small (as those on the left argue) or because Keynesian economics is obsolete (as those on the right argue), but because it was poorly designed. Even advocates for a bigger stimulus need to acknowledge that their argument is really one about design and presentation.

Take the tax cut piece of the plan. Inspired by new research in behavioral economics, Team Obama constructed the $116 billion tax credit so it was “dribbled” out in paychecks at about $10 a week. Grabell:

Perhaps that would have worked if the tax cut had been substantial. But spread out in tiny increments, it did little to overcome the prevailing fear of losing a job, a home and years of retirement savings. Not only did Obama lose the political credit but also the consumer excitement that a large check would have provided.

Or how about the infrastructure spending. Grabell says it was beset by regulatory obstruction and union pandering:

The timing of the stimulus was poor to bring about the flood of construction projects everyone expected in the first year. States had to advertise the project to allow contractors to submit bids. They needed to review those bids and sign the contracts. Then, they had to go back to the U.S. Department of Transportation for the final OK. ..

Some projects in public housing, waterworks and home insulation remained paralyzed for six months to a year as short-staffed agencies reviewed Buy American waiver requests and calculated prevailing wages for weatherization work in every county in America.

In Michigan, human services officials estimated that 90% of the homes in line for weatherization work would need a historic preservation review. But as of late fall 2009, the office responsible had only two employees.

Public transit advocates expected a windfall for bus companies like New Flyer in St. Cloud, Minn. But the transit money took longer to get out the door because every grant had to be reviewed by the Labor Department to ensure that it wouldn’t have a negative impact on transit unions.

In short, Big Government screwed up the Big Spend. Biden said the stimulus would “literally drop kick us out of the recession.” But Grabell concludes that “the stimulus ultimately failed to do what America expected it to do — bring about a strong, sustainable recovery. The drop kick was shanked.”

Previously, I wrote about the $447 billion stimulus – son of stimulus. It was also a shank.

Related posts

News

Indiana passes right-to-work law and is now open for business – and jobs

2 Comments
Central United States
Central United States

From GOP USA.

Excerpt:

Indiana is poised to become the first right-to-work state in more than a decade after the Republican-controlled House passed legislation on Wednesday banning unions from collecting mandatory fees from workers.

It is yet another blow to organized labor in the heavily unionized Midwest, which is home to many of the country’s manufacturing jobs. Wisconsin last year stripped unions of collective bargaining rights.

The vote came after weeks of protest by minority Democrats who tried various tactics to stop the bill. They refused to show up to debate despite the threat of fines that totaled $1,000 per day and introduced dozens of amendments aimed at delaying a vote. But conceding their tactics could not last forever because they were outnumbered, they finally agreed to allow the vote to take place.

The House voted 54-44 Wednesday to make Indiana the nation’s 23rd right-to-work state. The measure is expected to face little opposition in Indiana’s Republican-controlled Senate and could reach Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels’ desk shortly before the Feb. 5 Super Bowl in Indianapolis.

“This announces especially in the Rust Belt, that we are open for business here,” Republican House Speaker Brian Bosma said of the right-to-work proposal that would ban unions from collecting mandatory representation fees from workers.

Republicans recently attempted similar anti-union measures in other Rust-Belt states like Wisconsin and Ohio where they have faced massive backlash. Ohio voters overturned Gov. John Kasich’s labor measures last November and union activists delivered roughly 1 million petitions last week in an effort to recall Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker.

Indiana would mark the first win in 10 years for national right-to-work advocates who have pushed unsuccessfully for the measure in other states following a Republican sweep of statehouses in 2010. But few right-work states boast Indiana’s union clout, borne of a long manufacturing legacy.

Every time one state enacts a right-to-work law, it puts competitive pressure on other states. The reason why is because businesses are attracted to right-to-work states, and they will prefer to expand there, rather than in union-friendly states. In fact, some companies will just up and move to right-to-work states, leaving the union-friendly states with no employers at all.