Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and her Republican counterpart Donald Trump today sparred over economy and creating new jobs, in their first face-off in a nationally televised presidential debate ahead of US polls.
Trump claimed that the US is being used as a piggy bank to rebuild China.
“Our jobs are fleeing the country. Theyre going to Mexico. Theyre going to many other countries. You look at what China is doing to our country in terms of making our product.
“Theyre devaluing their currency, and theres nobody in our government to fight them. And we have a very good fight. And we have a winning fight.
“Because theyre using our country as a piggy bank to rebuild China, and many other countries are doing the same thing,” Trump said.
The real estate tycoon from New York said there is need to stop jobs from being stolen from the US.
“We have to stop our companies from leaving the United States and, with it, firing all of their people,” he said.
“We cannot let it happen. Under my plan, Ill be reducing taxes tremendously, from 35 per cent to 15 per cent for companies, small and big businesses.
“Thats going to be a job creator like we havent seen since Ronald Reagan. Its going to be a beautiful thing to watch,” Trump said.
Clinton, the first woman to appear on the stage of the presidential debate, disagreed.
“I think that trade is an important issue. Of course, we are 5 per cent of the worlds population; we have to trade with the other 95 per cent. And we need to have smart, fair trade deals,” she said.
“We also, though, need to have a tax system that rewards work and not just financial transactions. And the kind of plan that Donald has put forth would be trickle-down economics all over again.
“In fact, it would be the most extreme version, the biggest tax cuts for the top per cent of the people in this country than weve ever had.
“I call it trumped-up trickle-down, because thats exactly what it would be. That is not how we grow the economy,” she said.