| Usually, Republicans lean more to the side of free markets and the government keeping it's hands off of business decisions.The doesn't go over too well in the 'rust belt.' Union workers in the midwest do not seem to care for it. Talk of all those big corporations moving 'our jobs' overseas and giving them to those (undeserving?) Chinese or Mexicans or whatever seems to draw more votes.I was thinking of a way Republicans could claim to be in favor of free trade and reducing tax restrictions on business.Trump wanted to tax a US automaker, somehow, for moving its plant to Mexico. I don't know how he could pull that off legally. We have a free trade agreement that includes Mexico. There is no law against corporations taking investing their own money, the money of their shareholders, overseas where the economic conditions are more favorable.But there may be something the government can do-- play with the tax rate. This would be complicated, but for the manufacturing sector, the US government could give a really low corporate take rate to companies that manufactured in the US. Automobile manufacturers that have all their production in the US could pay 10% corporate tax. Automobile manufacturers that do not could pay something in the high 30's, whatever the corporate tax rate is that year. It would be hard for the government to assign a percentage to each company. Companies could apply for tax discounts for having a certain percentage of their production or employment in the US. A Republican could still be free trade and in favor of low taxes for businesses, for the most part, but throw this stance in to attract union workers |