President Joe Biden on Thursday proposed a budget plan that would cut deficits by $2.9 trillion over the next ten years. Republicans oppose the plan and intend to reject it. National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) President and CEO Jay Timmons fears the budget could reverse recent growth in American manufacturing jobs and investment.
Timmons released the following statement on President Biden’s fiscal 2024 budget plan:
“There is no escaping the fact that the tax increases in President Biden’s new budget proposal would reverse the recent significant growth we’ve achieved in American manufacturing jobs and investment.
“After the 2017 tax reform made rates more competitive, manufacturers kept their promises to raise wages and invest in their communities. In fact, 2018 was the best year for manufacturing job creation in the previous 21 years. And in the past two years, as we rebuilt from the pandemic, we’ve created more jobs in the sector than at any point since the Reagan administration. So it comes as a surprise that President Biden, who has vocally championed manufacturing growth in pushing successfully for infrastructure investment and the CHIPS and Science Act, wants to pursue policies that would undo our progress.
“We have to get serious about competing with China; the president’s budget does the opposite. This proposal further undermines manufacturing in America by failing to reverse tax policies that make it more difficult for our industry to perform research, while China currently employs a 200% super deduction on R&D for manufacturing. It’s also now more expensive to buy critical machinery and finance new investments. If these lapsed deductions aren’t reinstated, it will mean lost jobs, less innovation and fewer opportunities for our communities.
“As manufacturers work to lead our economy forward, we also remain committed to lowering health care costs through market-based solutions that deliver choice and flexibility. Unfortunately, this administration’s insistence on imposing drug pricing requirements is an abdication of free market principles that poses serious risks to the development of new treatments and therapies—the very type of innovation that saves lives in America and around the world.
“Manufacturers are committed to growing investment, jobs and wages here in America. We need our government leaders to share that commitment.”
NAM is the largest manufacturing association in the U.S. and represents small and large manufacturers in every industrial sector in all 50 states.
