Kerry’s jobs plan: “A hoax on the unemployed and giveaway for the rich” [View All]

[IndianaGreen]

The following is a statement by Socialist Equality Party presidential candidate Bill Van Auken in response to the “jobs plan” unveiled by Democratic presidential candidate Senator John Kerry in a March 26 speech in Detroit, Michigan.

SEP US presidential candidate on Kerry’s jobs plan: “A hoax on the unemployed and giveaway for the rich”
By Bill Van Auken
2 April 2004

The so-called jobs plan advanced by Democratic presidential candidate Senator John Kerry last week represents a cruel hoax on the unemployed and another tax giveaway for the super-rich.

While millions of jobless workers are facing foreclosure on their homes, the cutoff of health insurance, and the specter of destitution, Kerry has outlined a proposal geared to further fatten the bank accounts of America’s wealthiest 1 percent.

The plan centers on the premise that a 5 percent cut in corporate income tax, combined with ending the existing tax deferral on the unrepatriated overseas profits of US-based corporations, will stimulate job creation in the United States.

Despite the squabbles of the Democrats and Republicans over taxes, the Kerry plan is fundamentally in line with the Bush administration’s prescription of massive tax cuts for the wealthy and the corporations as the supposed means for overcoming the jobs crisis. There are no grounds for expecting any different result from a Democratic tax windfall for big business than from a Republican version of the same basic policy: trillions of dollars for the rich and millions more jobs wiped out.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/apr2004/kerr-a02.shtml