Business group urges work on taxes, trade and budget in lame duck

A leading business group is urging congressional lawmakers and the White House to take action on trade, taxes and fiscal issues during the lame-duck session.

The Business Roundtable pressed House and Senate leaders to fund the government, extend expired tax provisions and pass updated Trade Promotion Authority (TPA).

{mosads}”Doing so will help generate the investment, growth, and jobs our entire economy needs,” writes Randall Stephenson, chairman and chief executive officer of AT&T, in a letter sent Thursday. 

Dispatching with those issues will allow the new Congress to focus on tax reform, energy policy, immigration reform, trade expansion and infrastructure investment, he said. 

Specifically, the BRT is calling on Democrats and Republicans to produce a 2015 spending bill before the end of the year while avoiding “damaging fiscal showdowns.”

House and Senate Appropriations Committee leaders are aiming to complete an omnibus spending measure next month, which would give Republicans a clean slate next year to start budget proceedings. 

Stephenson also pressed Congress to “seamlessly extend or make permanent important business tax provisions that expired on Dec. 31.”

He suggested lawmakers target the research credit, the active financing and look-through rules and the 50 percent expensing provision for business investment. 

Lastly, the group continues to ramp up its pressure for lawmakers to give President Obama expanded trade powers to negotiate global agreements. 

“Congress should pass updated TPA to strengthen U.S. negotiators’ hands and help achieve solid outcomes for American companies, workers, and farmers in trade negotiations,” Stephenson wrote. 

“The U.S. economy is poised for sustained expansion, but it needs Congress and the Administration to act on policies that will drive increased business investment, more robust GDP growth and accelerated hiring,” he said.