Obama Auto Industry

Obama Auto Industry, The automotive industry would benefit from tax proposals that are part of President Barack Obama’s blueprint to support American manufacturing.

The six tax proposals are designed to encourage business to build in the U.S. rather than locate to lower-cost countries such as China, White House officials said in a Wednesday briefing prior to remarks by the president in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

The president’s five-state tour concludes Friday at the University of Michigan, where he will discuss retraining for workers and the need for colleges to hold down tuition costs.

The administration has said manufacturing added more than 300,000 jobs since December 2009, helped by companies bringing jobs back to the U.S. and investing domestically.

The tax proposals, which Obama wants Congress to approve this year, would remove deductions for moving jobs overseas and provide incentives to in-source the work.

The president wants companies to think twice when deciding where to build products, said Gene Sperling, director of the National Economic Council.

Instead of using past data that focused on labor costs in emerging countries, companies are being asked to look 10 years down the road and recognize improved U.S. productivity.

Automakers like to build where they sell but tended toward lower-wage regions especially when setting out to produce less-profitable smaller cars.

Detroit automakers and the UAW introduced lower entry wages to make the U.S. more competitive and add jobs. New contracts negotiated last fall show some success. Ford, for example, is repatriating work from China, Japan, Mexico and Europe.

“All three domestic automakers are bringing jobs back to the U.S. from other countries,” UAW President Bob King said in a statement, crediting the Obama administration with adding nearly 160,000 jobs.

“The president says he bet on U.S. workers,” King said. “That bet paid off, as we had no doubt it would.”