Input Stories

Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT), a longtime NAM ally in the pro-growth tax fight, is on a mission to make 2017 tax reform permanent (The Washington Times, subscription).

What’s going on: “For more than a year, Sen. Steve Daines has been arduously cultivating support in Congress to permanently extend President Trump’s first-term tax cuts. Now, as the December expiration of the 2017 tax cuts for individuals and small businesses inches closer, Mr. Daines made the permanent extension his top priority for the filibuster-proof budget reconciliation package Republicans are using to pass the president’s agenda.”

• Sen. Daines—who in a December meeting with the NAM executive committee pledged to prioritize making the pro-manufacturing tax measures of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act permanent—has been working with the NAM to educate other members of Congress on the need to maintain these provisions.

“Rocket fuel” gains momentum: The movement has drawn “broad support among Senate Republicans, including Majority Leader John Thune of South Dakota, Majority Whip John Barrasso of Wyoming and Finance Committee Chair Mike Crapo of Idaho,” the Times reports.

• And on March 24, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA), House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-MN) and House Republican Conference Chairwoman Lisa McClain (R-MI) issued a statement in support of passing a budget bill that makes those tax reforms permanent and brings back the provisions from the TCJA that have expired already.
• “House Republicans took the lead and passed a bill to fund the government through the end of the fiscal year,” the members said. “Now, our focus returns to delivering President Trump’s full America First agenda. The House is determined to send the president one big, beautiful bill that secures our border, keeps taxes low for families and job creators, grows our economy, restores American energy dominance, brings back peace through strength and makes government more efficient and more accountable to the American people.”
• NAM President and CEO Jay Timmons responded to the statement in a social post the same day, thanking Speaker Johnson “for recognizing the urgency of protecting manufacturers from devastating tax increases” and citing some of the stark findings of the NAM’s widely shared recent study on the negative effects of congressional failure to extend the tax cuts. “Manufacturers urge Congress to act now on a bill to make the 2017 tax reforms permanent,” he went on. “Every day of delay means lost jobs and missed opportunities for manufacturers. With nearly 6 million American jobs on the line, we can’t afford to wait.”

Certainty for manufacturers: In language similar to NAM talking points,  Sen. Daines told the Times: “If there’s one thing I’ve heard from our small businesses—and from the American people, for that matter—is they’d rather have certainty, they’d rather have 80% of something that’s certain than 100% of something that has an expiration on it. So permanency is something I think is really important.”

What’s next: The GOP continues to negotiate a budget resolution. The House and Senate each passed its own version in February, and Republicans are determined “to settle on a final bicameral product they can vote on in the next few weeks before the congressional recess for Easter and Passover.”