From The Hill (blog), “Bipartisan House members make push for R&D tax credit“:

A bipartisan group of House members is hoping now is the time to expand and permanently extend a tax credit for research and development.

At a Wednesday news conference in the Capitol, six lawmakers said they believed legislation they were backing would offer companies more certainty and help the United States stop losing ground to global competitors when it comes to innovation.

“This is an issue that cuts to the core of who we are as a nation,” said Rep. John Larson (D-Conn.), the chair of the House Democratic Caucus. “Manufacturing is part of our DNA. In order to make things in America, you have to be innovative. In order to be innovative, you have to make the investment in research and development.”

The bill is H.R. 942. The Hill’s technology blog, Hillicon Valley, reports support from the tech industry.

Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX), chief sponsor of the bill, issued a news release marking its introduction. Excerpt:

“Innovation drives America’s future,” said U.S. Congressman Kevin Brady (R-Texas), a senior member of the House Ways and Means Committee and the author of The American Research and Competitiveness Act of 2011. “To keep from falling behind our global competitors and to make sure America is the first choice for R & D jobs we need to modernize the tax credit, strengthen it to encourage companies to make greater investment in research and jobs and make the credit permanent so businesses have the confidence to make long-term investment decisions here in the United States.”

The National Association of Manufacturers praised the bill.

House leadership has pulled the rule for consideration of H.R. 4853, the tax compromise, over liberal Democratic members’ unhappiness with how it would deal with a separate vote on the estate tax. The confusion may delay a final vote on the bill. (Reuters, WSJ blog.)

The delay allows us the opportunity to post the transcript from last night’s PBC NewsHour, which featured a debate over the estate tax between Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX) and Rep. Earl Pomeroy (D-ND), the chief House backer of the higher tax rates. Brady did a good job of cutting through the rhetoric. Like the manufacturers, Brady supports a permanent repeal of death tax but regards the tax bill’s provisions as a compromise.

REP. KEVIN BRADY: Well, I think the death tax is wrong, and as close to a moral — immoral a tax as we have.

There’s something wrong about family farmers, family-owned businesses working their whole life to build up a nest egg, some of them working generations to do that, and then when they die have the government swoop in and take as much as half of everything that they have earned.

I think the death tax needs to go away permanently. Short of that, I think the common ground that was reached that exempts a lot of our family farms and family-owned businesses and taxes others at a 35 percent rate, that wasn’t created, that number didn’t come up from Washington.

That came from our local farmers, our local small business people, our local newspapers and grocery store owners, who said, if you can’t eliminate it completely, this will allow many of us to survive.

So I think that common ground is what we ought to stick with. And I don’t think 45 percent — I don’t think the government deserves half of what our hardworking Americans spent their life to build up.

And … (continue reading…)

We happened to catch two excellent speeches in Congress this week on the importance of Free Trade Agreements.

Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX) spoke Wednesday during the House debate on H.R. 1875, to establish an Emergency Trade Deficit Commission. The full debate started on page H6813 of The Congressional Record. Brady, who managed the Republican side of the debate, spoke beginning on page H6188, noting that the day marked the fifth anniversary of House passage of the U.S.-Central American Free Trade Agreement, or CAFTA.

Trade agreements … give us a chance not one-way trade in, but two-way trade where we have a level playing field. The world has changed. It’s not enough to simply buy American. We have to sell American. We have to sell our products and goods and services throughout this world. In fact, over 80 percent of our trade deficit today is with countries that are not trade agreement partners, that are not level playing fields for the United States. That’s why we push hard for those agreements.

For example, 5 years ago the United States had a $1.2 billion trade deficit with Central America. Last year, the United States had turned that around, because of the agreement, to a $1.2 billion trade surplus, and we’re on track to surpass that surplus again this year. Last year, the United States had a trade surplus in manufactured goods with our Central American partners of almost $2 billion. We’re on track again this year.

 Nor is CAFTA the only example of how trade agreements can improve the U.S. trade balance. This week also marks the eighth anniversary of the final House vote on the Trade Act of 2002, under which we have resoundingly successful trade agreements with 13 countries now in force. Last year, the United States had a trade surplus of over $25 billion with these 13 countries. And so far this year, we have a surplus again.

Looking at just trade in manufactured goods reveals that these agreements were even better for American manufacturing workers. Last year, the United States had a trade surplus of over $29 billion in manufactured products with these countries that we have free trade agreements. And again, we have this year a surplus already of nearly $16 billion. Without question, these trade agreements have reduced U.S. trade deficits and increased U.S. trade surpluses.

Rep. Geoff Davis (R-KY) also spoke on the floor, emphasizing the importance of trade to the manufacturing sector: “In my home State of Kentucky, nearly 50,000 manufacturing jobs are dependent on exports. The simple fact is that 95 percent of the world’s consumers live outside the United States, and the fastest growing markets are outside our borders. So success in those markets is critical to growing our manufacturing sector and creating good paying jobs.”

In the Senate, Sen. Chris Dodd spoke on Thursday, making a strong case for enacting the U.S. Free Trade Agreements with Colombia and Panama. He argued that the agreements had value for both foreign policy and U.S. domestic economic reasons, and concluded: (continue reading…)