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Michele Bachmann attacks US jobs going overseas to Ireland

GOP contender demands 100,000 jobs,profits be repatriated to US

JAMES O'SHEA,

IrishCentral.com Staff Writer

Published Monday, August 29, 2011, 7:39 AM

Updated Monday, August 29, 2011, 10:25 AM

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Michele Bachmann

Photo by Google Images

Michele Bachmann has stated that one of her first steps as president would be to get 100,000 jobs created in Ireland by US companies back to America.

The Republican presidential candidate was speaking in Florida at the weekend giving what ‘The New York Times’ called her first detailed economic speech.

“There are over 600 American companies that have gone to Ireland because of the tax rate. Over 100,000 jobs. I want those 100,000 jobs back in the United States.” she stated.

Bachmann also called for a tax holiday for American companies on profits made in Ireland and elsewhere abroad if they bring such profits back to the US.

She stated it is “the easiest thing the president could do, and he could do it today.”

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“American companies have sitting in the bank over a trillion dollars,” Bachmann said. “If we had a zero rate of repatriation, by the afternoon that trillion dollars would be back in the United States. Do you have any idea of how many jobs would be created?”

It is not the first time that Bachmann has focused on Ireland and the jobs created by American companies there.

Ireland’s 12.5 per cent corporate tax rate has lured many major US corporations to set up European operations there but has been controversial back in the US.

However, giants such as Coca Cola, Microsoft, Google, also use Ireland as their springboard to the European Union common market and need to be positioned on European soil to take proper advantage of that.

Foreign companies in Ireland currently export goods to the value of about $70 billion a year. They employ 240,000 people and account for 65 per cent of all corporate taxation paid in Ireland.

Any move to repatriate US corporation jobs back to the US would create a massive financial headache for the Irish economy .

Bachmann is the latest US politician to target US corporations abroad doing business in Ireland. During that last election GOP contender John McCain also raised the issue .

Bachmann has now moved as the issue of transfer pricing, essentially tax shelters used by US corporations in countries like Ireland threatens to become center stage.

Bloomberg News reports that “U.S. companies amassed at least $1 trillion in foreign profits not taxed in the U.S. as of the end of last year,/ That cumulative total, based on filings by 135 companies, increased 70 percent over three years, from $590 billion in 2006.”

It’s also not the first time Bachmann has invoked Ireland in her speeches.Bachmann claims she has visited Ireland in a 2007 press release “Last July, I was fortunate enough to meet with our soldiers and military officials in Iraq, Kuwait, Pakistan, Ireland and Germany."

However that claim to have visited Ireland has been disputed and her office has refused to issue any details despite being pressed don the issue.

Nster.com

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76 Comments

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seanomelbourne | Sep 01, 2011, 09:31 PM EDT

The U.S. economy in on a highway to hell led by Bachmann and her right wing christian teahadist cabal

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MegK311 | Aug 31, 2011, 08:34 PM EDT

There is mass unemployment here in the US partly due to many companies moving to other countries. This has happened mainly because of restrictions on businesses, My son has not worked for over 3 years. As most of my family lives in Ireland I am sympathetic for the need for jobs in Ireland. But I am also sympathetic to those in the US who also need work. Michell Bachmann is looking out for the people who will vote for her she is not the horrible person that some of the people posting here have made her out to be. We are all trying to survive no matter what country we are living in. It has been hard watching American companies close down here and set up in other countries. People out of work in the US suffer just as much as the unemployed in Ireland. I think some of the posters here are vicious.

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lastshovel | Aug 31, 2011, 07:51 AM EDT

The last time I observed a pair of eyes like those in the photograph was.....yesterday; in an article concerning a political group known to infamy as the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei; the main speaker possessed [them]. I submit that the Tea party is in fact, the Sturmabteilung of the Republican Party, USA, at large. Further, I submit that a careful reading of the first 7 chapters of "The Rise and Fall of The Third Reich" cannot fail to inform an intelligent, perceptive reader as to the path that the Neo-Conservative-Religious Right Republicans have set themselves upon and further, that this path is diametrically opposed to everything that a secular, democratic state must practice to survive. Thank You, Skip

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Ratslayer | Aug 30, 2011, 09:04 PM EDT

Always remember, wherever you may roam, that US Republicans are the true enemies of all who believe in sanity, science and facts. They are truly barbarians and they are destroying America.

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seanomelbourne | Aug 30, 2011, 07:53 PM EDT

clarec please do not give crazy George any oxygen

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clarec77 | Aug 30, 2011, 05:38 PM EDT

@GeorgeDillon where exactly is leprechaun land

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slainte39 | Aug 30, 2011, 05:10 PM EDT

Someone(s) on this forum mentioned raising or lowering meds for certain people. I think institutionalizing would be a better word.

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greensod | Aug 30, 2011, 04:00 PM EDT

No worries,the American people are smart enough not to elect this dummy that has been living off the tax payers since the day she was born.

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GeorgeDillon | Aug 30, 2011, 03:45 PM EDT

JamCelt: "The Poles get these kind of jobs because the Irish don't want them." Is that right? In that case why the hell are the Irish trying to slink into the USA, if they've spurned job opportunities in their own country? I say kick all illegal aliens out, and that includes Irish. Fortunately in my part of the country there are no illegal Irish that I am aware of, though the bad part of that is that I can't report any to the Feds so that they would be speedily (well, after a few weeks in federal prison) sent on their way to leprechaun land.

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sirpeter | Aug 30, 2011, 01:34 PM EDT

kinvara7 & clarec77.Very good factual comments.

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manhattan | Aug 30, 2011, 01:02 PM EDT

George Dillon is correct. The same can be said about our jobs here going overseas and here in this country illegals will work for very little so, management loves to hire them.

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kinvara7 | Aug 30, 2011, 10:28 AM EDT

Well said clare77. The ignorance of people like Wilhoef is amazing. I think everytime a politician or media outlet raises the issue of corporate tax or the companies that move to Ireland, we should just use it as an opportunity to advertise our business friendly country. Here are some of the other reasons companies choose Ireland: We are a member of the EU and the only English-speaking jurisdiction in the euro-zone; as a common law jurisdiction, our legal system is similar to that of the US; Dublin is an established international financial centre; Ireland has a comprehensive double tax treaty network with 63 countries, including the US; Ireland has a highly-skilled workforce, with one of the highest levels of third level education among workers in Europe. Among these workers there is a strong focus on business-related disciplines, over 60% of graduates in the last five years have qualified in business, information communications and technology , engineering or science.

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clarec77 | Aug 30, 2011, 09:45 AM EDT

It is hard to grasp the thinking behind some of the comments here. Corporations are loyal to shareholders and could not care less what governments think. Corporations now days operate outside their borders so position themselves close to their markets in order to be competitive. So how does this politician get around the fact that her plan would cause problems logistical wise thus increasing the overall cost to existing clients in Europe, a rational person could see that this would cause overall loss of market share for these companies because customers would choose substitute products or services. Not withstanding the fact that a small nation like Ireland employs over 80,000 people in the US, have people in the US ever considered what percentage of people employed in the US are employed by a foreign company and if all these adopted a similar attitude to this lady you would easily find that benefits would not amount to much in reality. Governments need to harness an environment where innovation is encouraged for example by ensuring that finance is available to meet good ideas that could provide new jobs or by ensuring that there is an adequate supply of educated people to meet demand instead of making statements that are misguided in reality. And to the poster who implied that Ireland received welfare from the EU, this is totally false, any grants(welfare) that Ireland received for infrastructure improvements etc were given on provision that it be repaid and a large percentage of this has been done and the recent bailout fund for the banks to ensure that the senior bond holders (French and German banks) will not be burdened by this crisis will be the responsibility of the Irish people who have taken major cuts to ensure that it will be. so if this amounts to your definition of welfare then so be it.

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Jamcelt | Aug 30, 2011, 08:43 AM EDT

The Poles get these kind of jobs because the Irish don't want them. Bachmann is just the latest in a long line of contestants for "The Great American Whack Job" competition they have going over there. Think of it as a sort of American Idol with bigots, xenophobes, anti-gays and general crazies.

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GeorgeDillon | Aug 30, 2011, 07:58 AM EDT

In Ireland, the problem is not that the "jobs will head off to Poland", but rather that Poland (and ancillary countries such as Latvia etc.) comes to Ireland. If you go into any Irish factory, you'll find that a large part of the workforce is foreign. In some industries that'll be a majority of foreign migrants. It doesn't do the Irish economy any good to have a never ending stream of migrants flooding into the country. You can never bring down unemployment when there are maybe a thousand migrant workers arriving per week. And of course the spending power of those migrants will be skewed towards sending remittances out of the country. They'll be happy to live 20 to a house and sleep two in a bed, because their goal is to amass money in order to send it back home. The Irish worker, in contrast, wants to live in a decent home and build his family, take vacations and spend leisure time. That's why the Irish worker can't compete with imported immigrant labor. And notice that the Irish ruling class only import workers--they never import bosses or politicians. All of the latter are corrupt Irish, but they don't have to compete with foreigners.

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