Saturday, October 04, 2003

Another beauty from Bush's speech here in Milwaukee:

Today, I met with three business owners here from the Milwaukee area....

I talked to John Stollenwerk today. He runs Allen-Edmonds. I happen to have one of his products on my feet. (Laughter and applause.) You probably think this is a gross pander. (Laughter.) But I wear John Stollenwerk's products nearly every day, except when I'm running. (Laughter.) He makes a great product. One of the world's finest shoes.

He bought the company 20 years ago, he made the conscious decision to fix it up to make the right decisions so he could keep people working here in Wisconsin. He says, not only am I successful because of the products we make, but I'm successful because of the people that work with him. I appreciate that attitude. You see, there's a company, CEO, that focuses on his employees, and understands that without good employees, he's not going anywhere.

He bought a million dollars worth of equipment because of the incentives we put into the tax package. That's a million dollars of purchases in the marketplace. Somebody is meeting the demand for that million dollars' worth of equipment. He says, I will take the money and invest it. This is the money that he has saved from the tax relief plan. He's a subchapter S corporation. They pay taxes at the individual rates. When we cut the individual rates, he ends up with more cash flow, plus the incentives on the investment side. He says, I will take that money and invest it and spend it, and I will do it more efficiently than the federal government could. (Applause.)

Short version: tax cuts good, see how this guy can keep his workers making shoes thanks to them?
The very same day, this story appeared in the local paper:

Weyco's last shoe factory in U.S. to close its doors

Beaver Dam plant production will be moved to India

Weyco Group, the Glendale-based marketer of men's footwear, plans to close its last U.S. factory - a plant in Beaver Dam that has been making shoes since 1937 - by the end of the year.

Becky Wendt, the plant manager, said Friday that production of the Nunn Bush and Stacy Adams shoes made in Beaver Dam will be handled in India. Of the 60 Beaver Dam workers, 45 will be terminated; 15 will stay on for warehousing and processing customer returns. The employees average 25 years at the plant, Wendt said, and 80% of them are older than 45.

You win some, you lose some.

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