Jobs are more than sound bites on the campaign trail – Long Island Business News

Job creation and the economy will undoubtedly be the big issues in the presidential campaign, but so far both President Barack Obama and GOP presidential nominee Gov. Mitt Romney have only been paying lip service on ways to keep our country competitive economically.  China bashing may play well in sound bites, but it won’t solve our country’s economic problems.

To get the economy going whoever wins the election will have to show leadership and take positions that might not be in lockstep with some supporters in their political parties.  We need concrete, workable and realistic proposals, not rhetoric to bolster each candidate’s core supporters.

One example is simplifying the national tax code, which many CPAs don’t even understand. America needs to be able to tap into more than $2 trillion in offshore profits made by U.S. corporations now sitting in overseas accounts. Currently the tax rate on this money, if repatriated to the United States is 35 percent. Rather than keep a rate that almost no company is paying anyway, lower that tax to a more realistic and palatable level such as 10 percent if the company commits to  3 percent into an economic development fund. This fund would help nascent corporations and help create jobs.

Another option is to cut the corporate tax rate to 25 percent and eliminate the loopholes as recommended by the president’s bi-partisan National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Tax Reform and supported by the Congressman Paul Ryan. It may look good on paper to have a high corporate tax rate but the reality is that any business with a half decent accountant doesn’t pay anywhere close to that amount.

For Obama, this would mean drawing the ire of some Democrats whose attitude seems to be there is no corporate tax too high. Romney would be faced with the wrath of many Republicans who instinctively oppose corporate taxes of any kind. That’s what government and leadership is about, compromise within reason and doing what’s right, not necessarily what is politically popular or what is likely to win the news cycle.

Both Obama and Romney will need to face a hard reality that certain manufacturing jobs are not coming back to the U.S.  We need to create incentives that keep the companies we already have here. This can range from workforce assistance training to financial incentives such as tax credits, and government guaranteed low interest loans. However, any aid or stimulus money given to companies should have some strings attached to avoid another Solyndra debacle. There needs to be quantifiable benchmarks such as the number of jobs actually created that must be met. The stimulus funding of a few years ago was largely ineffective because there was no roadmap and taxpayers feel like they threw away money.

Our country needs to do a better job of marketing itself to the rest of the world. The United States desperately needs a cohesive national economic development strategy to compete with foreign countries. Currently our states are too busy competing against each other to try and attract the same companies, as was the case when Indiana wooed a manufacturer and its 240 jobs from Illinois. We need to create strategic industry clusters such as pharmaceuticals in the Northeast, auto manufacturing in the south and nanotechnology in the “Rust Belt.” The Department of Commerce could develop and administer a regional development strategy. However, only the president has the bully pulpit to get the various competing interests to sign on and make it work.

Washington could take a page from New York’s playbook where good economic policies resulted from extensive marketing. The “I Love NY” campaign, created more than 30 years ago, still resonates around the country. Gov. Andrew Cuomo has rebranded the state in an attempt to make it more business friendly to stave off the exodus of New York companies.

Between now and November both Obama and Romney will speak at length about the outsourcing of U.S. jobs and being competitive globally.  The question is will they talk substance or sound bites?