President Donald Trump came to Pittsburgh with a simple message: “There has never been a better time to hire in America, to invest in America and to believe in the American Dream than right now.”
And it’s largely due to him and Republican tax cuts passed late last year, he said during a speech Thursday that ran roughly 25 minutes.
“At the center of America's resurgence are the massive tax cuts that I just signed into law,” Mr. Trump told hundreds of workers at H&K Equipment in North Fayette.
“It hasn’t even been a month since I signed the bill. It’s turned out to be much bigger than we all thought.”
Speaking before an array of fork lifts and an American-flag backdrop Mr. Trump cited a number of recent business moves as proof, ranging from Apple’s announced plans to invest $350 billion nationwide, to H&K’s own plans to invest $2.7 million in its materials-handling business.
“I appreciate that and the workers appreciate that,” he said.
Mr. Trump also hailed the fact that some companies, in the wake of the tax cut's passage, were giving workers bonuses. He called out by name Kevin Hodits, a Marine Corps veteran who now is technical operations manager at Comcast.
“Last week he received a $1,000 bonus check,” Mr. Trump said, adding that Mr. Hodits planned to use it to visit his grandparents. “See you in Florida. And congratulations for your bonus.”
Mr. Trump also called up H&K employee Ken Wilson as an example of a middle-class beneficiary of the cuts, which Mr. Trump said would reduce taxes by more than $2,000 a year for households with $75,000 in income. Mr. Trump asked him to say a few words — a tactic he has used at other events. Mr. Wilson praised his co-workers: “Everybody pulled together this week, and pulled this off,” he said.
“He did good!”” said Mr. Trump.
The visit also contained a dash of politics. In addition to acknowledging several Republican congressional representatives in attendance — including Western Pennsylvania's Mike Kelly, Keith Rothfus and Bill Shuster — Mr. Trump gave a shout-out to state Rep. Rick Saccone of Elizabeth. Mr. Saccone is running for Congress in the 18th District against Democrat Conor Lamb of Mt. Lebanon. Mr. Trump called Mr. Saccone “a real friend and a spectacular man.”
Speaking to reporters during a tour of the facility, Mr. Trump called Mr. Saccone “a great guy. .. He’s going to do well.”
“I’ll be back for Rick,” Mr. Trump said. “We’re going to fill up a stadium for him.”
Whether Thursday’s visit was a campaign stop itself was a matter of some controversy: White House officials said it was an official government stop, but Mr. Trump tweeted shortly before 8 a.m. that he was coming to the area “in order to give my total support to RICK SACCONE.”
White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders later issued a statement asserting that Mr. Trump was coming to “promote [his] successful agenda.”
Mr. Saccone met Mr. Trump after the president landed at Pittsburgh International Airport shortly after 2 p.m. They spoke briefly after Mr. Trump left Air Force One and shook hands with supporters, at least one of whom took a selfie with the president.
Mr. Saccone said afterward that the president had been "very polite, very encouraging."
Mr. Trump’s speech lacked the fireworks of some other appearances, though he did poke fun at 2016 political rival Hillary Clinton for calling some of his supporters “deplorables.” There were no protests at the event, though Mr. Trump’s motorcade from the airport to the H&K facility did pass a group of supporters and protesters, one of whom held up a sign that said, “Keep your little hands off my SS,” a reference to Social Security.
The potential impact of Mr. Trump’s tax cuts is a subject of spirited debate.
Critics have noted, for example, that when Comcast announced $1,000 bonuses for employees, it did so with a statement praising not just the tax-cut package but "the FCC's action on broadband" — a recent decision by the Federal Communications Commission to end "net neutrality" rules. Those rules would have required internet providers like Comcast to provide the same access to any website customers visited.
Leading into Thursday’s event, White House officials said that H&K’s investment was made possible by an unsung provision of the tax cut package called “full expensing.” That change allows companies to deduct 100 percent of the cost of capital investments in the year they are made, rather than over the course of numerous years. In a press conference Wednesday, Ms. Huckabee Sanders said the change meant “millions of dollars will be invested in growing their business rather than propping up the bloated government in Washington.”
Dean Baker, an economist at the liberal Center for Economic and Policy Research, said that “for smaller businesses, [full-expensing] can help because they can be cash-constrained,” and being able to take the full deduction in the same year helps. “In a weak economy, it can help by moving investment forward” and creating activity. “But overall, it doesn’t really change the amount of investment, just the timing.”
Prior to his speech, Mr. Trump toured the H&K facility, where he admired the company’s refurbishing of industrial equipment as members of his entourage, including his daughter, Ivanka Trump, and treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, looked on.
Reporters asked Mr. Trump about a controversy surrounding remarks made by his chief of staff, John Kelly, who’d called some of Mr. Trump’s campaign-trail promises on immigration “uninformed.”
Mr. Trump, who reportedly was furious about Mr. Kelly’s remarks, called him a “special guy,’’ adding that his top aide “has done a really great job.”
And as Washington faces the possibility of a government shutdown, Mr. Trump sought to place the blame on Democrats -—even though Republicans control both houses of Congress and the White House. Democrats, he told reporters, wanted a shutdown to change the topic from his tax cuts' success: "This subject has not been working well for them."
Trump working the crowd, took at least one selfie pic.twitter.com/8f3ZgcIZmN
— Chris Potter (@CPotterPgh) January 18, 2018
First Published: January 18, 2018, 8:34 p.m.
Updated: January 20, 2018, 1:02 a.m.
