The House had a full debate on the floor Thursday on H.R. 5893, the Investing in American Jobs and Closing Tax Loopholes Act. By “Closing Tax Loopholes,” supporters mean raising taxes on U.S. businesses with global operations, and the National Association of Manufacturers sent a Key Vote letter opposing the bill.

The final vote on the bill was postponed, postponed, and as the floor session continued into Friday morning, postponed. It was never held, and so far there’s no sign of a vote today, and the House is scheduled to leave soon for its August recess.

It may be that a majority of House members recognized that raising taxes on manufacturers and other businesses — jobs creators — is a terrible idea. Today’s Commerce Department announcement that second quarter 2010 GDP growth was just 2.4 percent, indicating a slowing recovery, should give Representatives further reason for restraint. (BLS news release, Los Angles Times, “Economy slows sharply in second quarter.”)

The floor debate on H.R. 5893 started on page H6355 of The Congressional Record. Rep. Dave Camp (R-MI), the ranking member of the House Ways & Means Committee, cited the NAM’s letter on page H6367.

UPDATE (10:45 a.m.): Rep. Camp just said the bill did not come to a vote because the Republicans had a motion to recommit that would have passed. The House is now debating H.R. 5982, which appears to be a bill that also has tax increases on businesses with overseas operations. Rep. Scott Murphy (D-NY) calls it the “Small Business Tax Relief Act,” says it would repeal the additional IRS 1099 reporting required under the new health care law. Bill was just introduced today.

The National Association of Manufacturers has just sent a “Key Vote” letter to the U.S. House, expressing the NAM’s strong opposition to H.R. 5893, the Investing in American Jobs and Closing Tax Loopholes Act of 2010.

The full letter is available here. The gist:

An estimated 22 million people in the United States—more than 19 percent of the private sector workforce and 53 percent of all manufacturing employees—are employed by companies with operations overseas. Manufacturers feel strongly that imposing $11.5 billion in tax increases on these companies as proposed by H.R. 5893 will jeopardize the jobs of American manufacturing employees and stifle our fragile economy.

Many of the tax increases proposed in H.R. 5893, which are mischaracterized as closing tax loopholes, actually represent significant changes to the pro-growth tax policy supported by Congress and the Administration. For example, the proposed anti-competitive limitation on the use of Sec. 956 loans removes a greatly needed source of U.S. cash for worldwide American companies – a source that Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) sought to facilitate in guidance issued as recently as last December. As we continue to work through one of the greatest credit crunches in U.S. history, taking away a source of cash for U.S. companies to grow, build and create jobs puts our fragile recovery at risk.

We are disappointed that many of the bill’s proposed tax increases have not been adequately scrutinized during congressional hearings. In many cases, taxpayers have relied on these longstanding tax provisions in structuring their businesses. Changing the rules without fair and adequate hearings will cost in terms of jobs, investment and manufacturers’ ability to compete overseas.

Manufacturers believe strongly that changes to our international tax laws should be considered in the broader context of tax reform that makes the United States more competitive – not as “pay fors” for unrelated policy initiatives. Moreover, targeting some international tax law changes in advance of the tax reform debate would make the goal of pro-growth, pro-competitiveness reform that much more difficult, if not impossible, to achieve.

The bill has some good provisions, such as extending the Build America Bonds authority and lifting the state volume cap for private activity bonds for water and waste water infrastructure. But the major impact of the bill is to raise taxes on companies that create wealth and jobs in the United States, in the process making the U.S. a less attractive, less competitive place to do business.

The NAM uses “Key Vote” letters to inform members of Congress that the pending votes will be taken into account when assessing a member’s record on manufacturing-related issues.