Tom Pauken

By Walt Nett
April 24, 2011
Lubbock Avalanche-Journal

I wonder how many folks at the Workforce Solutions South Plains luncheon had the same “A-ha!” moment I had at lunch a couple of weeks ago as Tom Pauken talked about a rather radical revision of the nation’s corporate tax laws, which he points to as a major “job killer.”

Pauken, chairman of the Texas Workforce Commission, is an ardent supporter of what’s known as the Hartman Plan, a proposal put forth by Austin businessman David Hartman that calls for doing away with the nation’s corporate tax rate and the 6.2 percent payroll tax businesses pay on their employees, in favor of a business consumption tax of 8 percent adjusted at the border, so that the 8 percent would be collected from all imported goods and services, and U.S. companies would get an 8 percent tax credit or abatement on exported goods and services.

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Listen to the April 13th interview here.

(Originally appeared in The Des Moines Register)

April 1, 2011

A front page story in Sunday’s Des Moines Register addresses the closing of the Electrolux plant in Webster City and the loss of 850 manufacturing jobs which will be moved to Juarez, Mexico. As the article points out, “the four counties in the Webster City area…have experienced a 32.1% drop in manufacturing jobs” since 2000. That mirrors what’s taken place across the U.S. which has lost one-third of its manufacturing jobs during the same period of time. That’s more than 5.6 million good American jobs that have been shipped overseas, outsourced, or simply gone away.

In the words of the late German economist Kurt Richebacher, “Essentially all (U.S.) jobs losses are high-wage manufacturing, and most gains are in low-wage services. In essence the U.S. economy is restructuring downward, while the Chinese economy is restructuring upward.” Continue reading →

Part 1
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Part 2
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Listen to the show here. Tom goes on at the 40-minute mark.

Click here to listen to Part One of the interview that aired March 5.
Click here for Part Two.

Follow the link to watch the Ustream broadcast (Tom starts at the 20-minute mark): http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/11485901

Listen to the interview here (Tom starts around the 26 min. mark)

Click here to listen to the interview.

Click here to listen to Tom’s interview.