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When it comes to identifying policymakers who will champion bipartisan, constructive approaches to fix our outdated, broken tax system and help U.S. companies to innovate, compete and create jobs, don’t count Senator Carl Levin among them. For several years, Senator Levin has used his position as Chair of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations to conduct a campaign to embarrass American companies [...]
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There is one word that shows up consistently in President Obama’s Fiscal Year 2014 budget: innovation. We see it in the descriptions of almost every federal agency’s spending blueprint. (In fact, the word “innovation” shows up 107 times in the 244-page budget.) The investments that the president proposes in research and development (R&D), in scientific exploration, in cutting-edge education initiatives, [...]
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Under a beautiful blue sky in the Rose Garden this morning, President Obama laid out the three key questions that drove the priorities in his just-released Fiscal Year (FY) 2014 budget: “How do we make America a magnet for new jobs? How do we give our workers the skills they need to do those jobs? And how do we make sure that hard work leads to a decent living?” Some of the key initiatives put forward [...]
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In a report that would have made Casablanca’s Captain Renault blush, this morning’s Marketplace Morning Report discovered the “shocking” news that U.S.-headquartered multinational companies keep their foreign earnings in foreign markets, and by doing so, they are able to defer any U.S. taxes on those earnings until it is invested in the U.S. This isn’t new -- tax deferral been a feature of U.S. tax [...]
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The President’s nominee to be the next U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, Jack Lew, testified at the Senate Finance Committee today and faced questions from Democratic and Republican Senators on the importance of corporate tax reform to job creation. (You can watch the archived hearing on the committee’s site.) Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., set the tone with his opening statement, underscoring that the [...]
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As they analyze the two speeches tonight – the President’s State of the Union Address and Senator Marco Rubio’s Republican response, pundits are focused on the evening's political theater. Who applauded when? Was the tone fair or fractious? But those questions ignore the ones that are most important: What are the areas of agreement? And how do we get them done? When there is bipartisan agreement, [...]
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There are critical choices facing Congress as members work to find solutions to the urgent fiscal challenges facing the nation. But, as they work toward answers, they should not sacrifice the foundation of America’s innovation economy – science, R&D, and education. And when it comes to “raising revenues” – Washington-ese for higher taxes – Congress needs to adopt a competitive, market-based approach [...]
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It’s been interesting to follow the back and forth today on corporate tax reform between the Business Roundtable (BRT) and the White House. It’s important to understand what was -- and wasn’t -- said. First, the BRT’s President, Governor John Engler, today put forward his organization’s 2013 policy priorities -- a plan titled, “Act for America’s Future.” In response to a question about what he has [...]
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Today’s Wall Street Journal looks at a reality facing major U.S.-headquartered multinationals and our economy -- namely, the U.S. tax system is a barrier to new jobs and investments here at home. Given the significant attention Congress will give to tax reform, it’s important to give context to the Journal article. The article focused on the fact that many U.S.-based global companies keep a significant [...]
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In his Inaugural Address today, President Obama combined poetry and prose as he spoke about the priorities that he will bring to his second term in office. For many of these issues, the technology sector has put forward ideas with backing from both Democratic and Republican Members of Congress. The challenge consistently has been building broader support to move policies from good proposals to new [...]