The NAM Web site provides extensive
information on manufacturing issues. The digest below provides a brief
summary of many issues. Clicking on each topic name will take you to
additional documents and links relating to that topic.
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| The Corporate Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) hits companies with a higher tax burden when they can least afford it – when profits are down - and penalizes business investment. Hence, the AMT is an anti-manufacturing tax. The NAM’s long-term goal is repeal of the corporate AMT; the short term goal is AMT relief, particularly related to faster utilization of accumulated AMT credits. |
| Much of the work of the courts focuses on civil litigation liability issues that directly affect the ability of companies to create jobs, compete in world markets and grow the American economy. Members of the NAM, who employ millions of people throughout the United States, believe it is in the nation’s interest to restore fairness and predictability to the legal system so that the rights of individuals and businesses to grow businesses and jobs are not threatened by abusive lawsuits and unreasonable jury awards. For this reason, the NAM has created the American Justice Partnership (AJP) – a multi-faceted campaign for state-level legal reform. |
There is broad and bipartisan agreement that asbestos litigation needs to be reined in. There are simply too many people who are not sick taking money that could be going to people who are sick and financially ruining companies with little or no liability. There are at least 8,400 active defendants, more than 70 bankruptcies caused by asbestos litigation, and at least 60,000 jobs lost so far. And, for every 10 jobs lost due to an asbestos bankruptcy, a community will lose 8 additional jobs. These stark statistics call for Congress to “do something.” |
| | | Capital investment is key to economic growth and job creation. Lower tax rates on capital gains and dividends encourage capital investment. Legislation enacted in 1997 lowered the top rate on individual capital gains from 28 to 20 percent. In May 2003, the top tax rate on individual capital gains was lowered to 15 percent through 2008. The NAM helped obtain legislation in 2006 that extended the lower rates on capital gains and dividends through 2010. These lower rates have helped fuel economic growth and the NAM supports making them permanent. |
| The majority of the nation’s critical infrastructures and key assets are owned and operated by manufacturers. The September 11, 2001 attacks demonstrated the extent of America’s vulnerability and the NAM believes that federal authority should be placed with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Congress and the Administration should be flexible with solutions and legislation should ensure that a level playing field is maintained by: avoiding the elimination or reduction of chemicals, recognizing existing laws and procedures and encouraging voluntary cooperation. Safeguards must be in place to protect companies from civil lawsuits in the event of a terrorist act and ensure security of corporate submitted to the government. In October 2006, the President signed legislation that implements a chemical facility security regulatory regime. The NAM was instrumental in making sure the measure was sensitive to the needs of manufacturers and is working to make sure that DHS implements regulations without unnecessary burdens. The NAM opposes placing unachievable requirements on companies, such as drafting plans to respond to any vulnerability, including chemical elimination or reduction. |
The NAM is seeking a comprehensive approach to China, to boost opportunities for U.S. firms and reduce Chinese government intervention in the marketplace – focusing on improved intellectual property protection, reduction of export subsidies, full compliance with WTO obligations, and cessation of China’s extreme currency intervention holding down not only the yuan but also other developing Asia currencies.
- Currency: China’s currency should reflect economic fundamentals.
- Counterfeiting: A dramatic acceleration of initiatives is needed – strict enforcement of China’s laws, imposition of criminal penalties, stiff border controls, etc. – to reduce and eliminate intellectual property rights violations in China, which is widely recognized as home of the biggest international counterfeiting and piracy rings.
- Standards: A vigorous and sustained effort must be waged both here and in China to eliminate the growing number of trade-related administrative, regulatory and technical standards barriers in China that effectively block U.S. producers’ access to the Chinese market.
- Subsidies: Chinese companies are reported to benefit from a wide array of subsidies (government bank lending to firms without creditworthiness, export-based tax incentives, etc.).
- U.S. Exports: In an effort to bolster U.S. manufacturers’ exports to China, we must strengthen and expand U.S. export promotion and financing programs, streamline export controls and Chinese business visa policies, and seek further reductions in Chinese tariffs and restrictive public procurement policies.
As a result of NAM leadership, the Bush Administration and Congress are paying more attention to manufacturers’ concerns. |
| Concern about the potential impact of human activities on the earth's natural greenhouse effect has become an international issue and has spawned numerous legislative proposals. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has called for legislation. The NAM believes that any policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions must be subject to thorough and open public debate, including consideration of their impact on the U.S. economy and its international competitiveness. U.S. climate change policies should be voluntary, cost-effective, compatible with our marketplace economy, flexible, global in scope and involve all of our trading partners, and take into account all greenhouse gas sources and sinks. The NAM opposes any federal or state government climate change mandate that could adversely affect U.S. manufacturing competitiveness. |
| Product counterfeiting has grown dramatically worse around the world, and is estimated to account for 7 percent of world trade. The problem is especially serious in China where a wide range of fake industrial products are manufactured in large volumes for the domestic market and sale abroad. Counterfeiting not only hurts businesses and their employees but also poses health and safety risks to consumers as fake products usually do not meet the high quality standards of the authentic products. The NAM is playing a leading role in mobilizing the manufacturing community and federal authorities to address the problem. |
| Direct and indirect industry and export subsidies are a major concern of U.S. manufacturers, particularly those who compete against Chinese-made products. Subsidies distort international trade and investment – regardless of whether they originate in market or non-market economies. The NAM pressed for a World Trade Organization (WTO) case, and the U.S. government recently filed such a case against China. In March 2007, the Department of Commerce decided that indeed anti-subsidy laws should be applied to China and other non-market economies and issued the first countervailing duty decision. |
| In 1994, China devalued its currency by about 30 percent and maintained that value for over 10 years –despite a huge increase in production capability and quality, productivity, foreign direct investment, and other factors that would normally be expected to cause a currency to appreciate.
The NAM has been the leading association pressing for revaluation and market determination of China’s currency, the yuan. The Administration has been working with the Chinese government for two years to accomplish this objective. China has changed its currency policy and is allowing the yuan to appreciate, but the 7 percent appreciation so far is not enough. The NAM is supporting Treasury Secretary Paulson’s strategic economic dialogue approach to get China to move faster. |
| | | American manufacturers are facing a serious shortage of qualified employees. The skilled worker shortage is the result of several factors: the retirement of baby boomers; the need for greater skill created by advancing technology; increased competition in the global marketplace; and difficulty with retaining highly-skilled talent. To help match manufacturers with highly skilled workers, the U.S. must improve the quality of education in our primary, secondary, and post-secondary school systems. We must also improve job training programs to address the continuous demands of training and re-training of workers. |
| Affordable and reliable energy is essential to the long-term health of the U.S. economy and the prosperity of American workers. While investing in new energy sources and continuing to boost efficiency gains will play critical roles in meeting our country’s energy demands in the future, America must increase its access to domestic sources of reliable energy. The NAM has drafted a robust, aggressive, comprehensive energy strategy to adequately address our nation’s energy needs. |
| The current death tax places a tremendous burden on American businesses. With rates as high as 46 percent, federal estate and gift taxes force some families to sell a business when the owner dies. Even before death, many business owners are forced to adopt estate planning strategies that are costly, cumbersome and time consuming. Legislation enacted in 2001 gradually phases out the death tax until 2010 when the tax will be completely repealed. Unfortunately, the tax law changes are temporary. A “sunset” provision terminates all the tax relief at the end of 2010. Unless this sunset is repealed, the 2001 estate tax regime will resurface in 2011. The NAM strongly supports permanent repeal of the death tax. |
| In March 2007, the NAM joined several other leading associations in launching the Coalition for Security and Competitiveness to modernize the U.S. export control system. The new effort is aimed at improving the system of controls on advanced technology and defense-related exports so that it is more efficient, predictable and transparent. These improvements will enhance the government’s ability to protect national security while also helping to ensure that U.S. industry stays competitive in today’s global economy. The Coalition forwarded nineteen specific recommendations to the President that can be implemented administratively without any new legislation. |
| | The FMLA, enacted in 1993, requires companies with 50 or more employees to provide up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave to employees with a newborn or newly adopted child, serious personal illness or seriously ill family member. While on leave, the employee’s job and health insurance are protected. Unfortunately, this 13 page law drafted by Congress, which seemed fairly straightforward, has morphed -- in the hands of Department of Labor bureaucrats -- into 300 pages of regulations, not to mention the hundreds of pages of interpretive letters and other “guidance” issued. Numerous bills have been introduced to expand the FMLA for various purposes and to lower the threshold to employers with over 25 employees. The NAM opposes these bills. The NAM supports legislation and/or regulatory efforts to revise the FMLA implementing regulations, particularly with respect to notice requirements, defining serious health conditions and the use of intermittent leave. |
| Since World War II, federally-supported science has been the foundation of innovation in our economy. Federal grants support graduate students who enter the labor market and help create the knowledge base for product and process development. Firms also conduct major R&D programs with government laboratories. The NAM long has advocated for an increase in spending for all federal civilian R&D. For the first time in more than a decade, the Administration has proposed doubling of funding for the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy’s Office of Science for FY2007. The NAM strongly supports this increase and is actively lobbying in support of authorizing legislation. |
| Broadband, or high-speed access to the Internet, generates a number of economic benefits including increased technology-based productivity, job creation and new and improved services for businesses and households. The United States is falling behind and now stands sixteenth worldwide in broadband penetration. Pending legislation would supersede local video franchising processes that are slowing investment in broadband. Once enacted, a franchise reform bill would expedite investment in new broadband network capable of carrying a wide range of digital communications services including video and help stimulate growth in the telecom equipment and software manufacturing industries. |
| | | The rising cost of health coverage is one of the greatest issues employers face, burdening employers and workers alike. The NAM supports technological and process innovation to improve the quality and affordability of health care coverage. We also support consumer-focused initiatives such as Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) that help consumers navigate the changing face of health care. The key to health care reform is increasing access to the wonders of innovative medicine. |
Health Information Technology and value-based purchasing incentives will help drive higher quality care, greater transparency, increased efficiency and more affordable health care. In December 2006, the NAM partnered with Applied Materials, Intel, Wal-Mart, BP North America, and Pitney-Bowes to announce the creation of Dossia, a personal, portable and private Web-based electronic health record platform. The program will help employees better manage their health care, improve communications between doctors and patients and reduce inefficiencies in the health care system. Dossia will be initially available to employees of the founding member corporations beginning in 2007, with wider availability coming at a later date. |
The United States is almost unique in the world for our strong, voluntary, private-market health care system. Our system is not without its faults, however, including rising health care costs and persistently high numbers of uninsured Americans. These faults have prompted some to propose replacing private health care with a single, government-run health care system (single-payer). Others would require employers to pay for health benefits (employer mandate) or combine an employer mandate with alternative employer-financed government coverage (pay-or-play). The NAM opposes these proposals.
Single-payer systems inevitably ration health care to consumers while consuming massive amounts of taxes, corporate and personal. Employers can’t be saddled with mandated health coverage in a fragile economy. The NAM believes that private market solutions are superior to huge government-run programs and that employers should be allowed to voluntarily provide health coverage. The NAM’s private-market health care agenda can be viewed at www.nam.org/healthplan. |
| | In the interest of promoting U.S. global competitiveness, it is important for policymakers to simplify and reform our current international tax regime, which is both anti-competitive and anti-growth. An effective package of international tax simplification/reform provisions would provide immediate economic stimulus by reducing double taxation and compliance burdens, thereby reducing overhead costs of export production and foreign investment. Lower costs directly translate into increased sales of U.S. products and jobs for American workers making those products. |
| The Internet Tax Moratorium, which is a ban on state and local taxation of Internet access (except for some grandfathered states) and new, multiple, and discriminatory taxes on electronic commerce, expired November 1, 2007. The 108th Congress 2004 temporarily extended the moratorium. The NAM supports a permanent extension. |
| | | | The so-called “Employee Free Choice Act” (EFCA) would take power and voice from America’s working people and give it to union bosses. EFCA passed the House and awaits Senate action. For decades, employees have had the right to a private ballot election overseen by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to determine whether to certify union representation. The NLRB, an independent government agency, ensures a fair election, free of fraud, where employees may cast their vote confidentially without peer pressure or coercion from unions or employers. However, union bosses find secret ballot elections an impediment to unionization. They prefer "card check" elections, where employees are forced to cast their vote in front of union organizers and fellow employees who support unionization. The NAM strongly opposes this legislation. |
| In April 2006, Senate leaders proposed repealing the LIFO inventory accounting method to pay for a $100-per-family gas tax rebate. LIFO repeal was apparently proposed in part due to a mistaken belief that LIFO is a “tax loophole” or that it is set to disappear from use. In fact, LIFO is an established, widely-accepted inventory accounting method that has been used by large and small companies throughout the U.S. economy since the 1930s. Repealing LIFO would be a massive tax increase on hundreds of thousands of large and small American businesses, and could force many smaller ones to close. The NAM opposes any effort to repeal LIFO. |
| The NAM was founded in 1895 during a deep recession when many of the nation’s manufacturers perceived a strong need to locate new markets for their products and to ultimately improve the climate for business. For more than a century, the NAM has worked with our federal government to ensure that the U.S. economy is the strongest and most innovative in the world. In order to achieve these goals, the member companies and associations of the NAM have used their Constitutional right to petition the three branches of the federal government. The NAM opposes any efforts by Congress to rein in the ability of all our country’s citizens to appropriately and effectively educate their elected officials.
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Renewed & Strengthened! Congress passed legislation that was signed into law October 3, 2008, that extended retroactively the R&D tax credit from January 1, 2008, through December 31, 2009, and strengthened the credit by increasing the Alternative Simplified Credit rate to 14% effective in 2009. Prior the credit’s renewal in 2008, the credit was expired for 9 months through September 2008. Nearly 18,000 companies of all sizes use the credit that was renewed for the 13th time since its original enactment into law in 1981.
For more information, contact NAM's Monica McGuire, who also serves as the R&D Credit Coalition's Executive Secretary, at mmcguire@nam.org or (202) 637-3076. Visit the R&D Credit Coalition website: www.investinamericasfuture.org
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| For better supply chain security and efficiency, industry needs to move from bar codes to radio frequency identification (RFID) devices with a self-regulated industry rollout, similar to the rollout of bar codes. A number of states have considered legislation that would impede RFID implementations with cumbersome requirements. The NAM is working with the EPCglobal U.S. Government Working Group to promote the development of industry-driven standards and industry self-governance in Radio-Frequency applications (RFID), as well as proposing standards for Electronic Product Codes and RFID technology. As the states became more active, the NAM focused its lobbying efforts against state legislation that would impede RFID implementation and create cumbersome requirements – as well as prevent unintended consequences, such as the inadvertent banning of cell phones. |
| | | NAM members remain concerned that revenue raisers that are often added as part of an overall legislative package could weaken the benefits of recent tax relief signed into law and increase the cost of doing business. We remain committed to supporting tax policy that encourages economic growth and will oppose provisions that have a negative, unintended impact on American manufacturers and ones that would impose new financial burdens on some businesses. |
| Faced with a “pay as you go” environment in the 110th Congress, the NAM is leading the business community in opposing new tax increases on American manufacturers. In particular, we are working to derail current efforts to impose new limits on nonqualified deferred compensation and eliminate deductions for punitive damages and settlement payments. The NAM also is leading efforts to preserve the use of the LIFO method of inventory accounting for all businesses and will continue to oppose any efforts to reinstate the Superfund tax. |
| During the boom of the 1990s, telecommunications carriers invested heavily in fiber optic cables for long-distance communications, to the point of creating overcapacity or “dark fiber.” Until recent favorable policy changes, carriers largely had not invested in fiber optic cables between serving central offices and customer premises. Local broadband deployment can provide a major boost to information technology-based productivity, employment and consumer benefits in the coming years. |
| The NAM seeks to level the global playing field for American manufacturers by reducing foreign barriers to U.S. exports. The NAM is a strong supporter of reducing trade barriers through multilateral trade negations in the World Trade Organization (WTO) Doha Round, but also supports a continued effort to negotiate bilateral or regional free trade agreements (FTAs).FTAs are a proven, practical way of eliminating foreign trade barriers. Many people mistakenly believe that trade agreements are the cause of our trade deficit. In fact, the truth is that a disproportionate share of our trade deficit comes from nations with which we do not have trade agreements. |
| Trade Promotional Authority (TPA) enables the United States to implement advantageous Free Trade Agreements (FTAs). Over the past 2 years, the U.S. manufacturing trade balance with FTA partners has improved by $10 billion, while the trade balance with non-FTA countries has deteriorated $82 billion. TPA expires in June 2007. The NAM supports TPA to reduce trade barriers and keep American manufacturers competitive in the global economy. |
| Transportation is the lifeblood of any economy. Transportation efficiencies, including adequate infrastructure and sound regulatory policies, can contribute greatly to national economic growth and competitiveness. To that end, the NAM supports: regulatory policies that promote full and effective competition and enable minimal regulatory control. Such regulation, when necessary, should be administered fairly and efficiently. State laws and regulations must recognize and concede to the inherent interstate local and international nature of most transportation movements, and refrain from imposing policies that hinder the free flow of goods. Consistent with other NAM tax policies, transportation-related development expenses preferably should come from general revenues, and provide adequate federal funding for public infrastructure improvements and encourage public-private partnerships. |
| | | | The NAM leads the private sector effort to obtain significant cuts in foreign country tariffs and trade barriers on U.S. exports of manufactured goods. The NAM’s WTO Action Group has been working actively with the Administration to see that the WTO Doha Round results in real gains for American manufacturers, both through a tariff cutting formula and tariff elimination in important industry sectors. |
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