On Tuesday in Washington D.C. President Barack Obama and the White House announced the latest attempt to create domestic job growth and to build a strong, secure middle class and economy through fair and common sense reforms to the tax code as well as through investments to repair the nation’s ailing infrastructure.
As he stated in his speech at Knox College last week, the President’s plan contains not only requested legislation from Congress but also includes executive actions and a call on business leaders to work with the government in order to develop solutions that will increase job creation.
The statement specifically noted the President’s willing to work with republicans on the business tax code, “so long as it includes real investments to help restore middle class security, create jobs and grow the economy.”
The proposal contains three distinct parts:
- Tax code reform targeted toward creating incentives for middle class job creation;
- Investment in communities through infrastructure development, manufacturing innovation institutes, and community college funding which targets the creation of middle class job fields;
- Executive actions targeted at building middle class jobs by creating incentives for foreign investors to build jobs in the United States through an expansion of SelectUSA and at working closely with the private sector to find new ways to spur job growth and help the long-term unemployed gain the training needed to find a place in the workforce.
Many of the moderate and traditionally nonpartisan ideas announced have been proposed previously by President Obama. These proposals include the need to remove loopholes in the tax code which corporations enjoy while at the same time reducing the overall top base tax rate for corporations from 35% to 28%, removing incentives for companies and corporations to locate overseas and investing in infrastructure across the United States in order to fix the nation’s roads, bridges, and other structures and systems which are becoming in an ever increasing state of disrepair or obsolete. However, in the past such measures have been impeded by republicans in Congress, many of whom have vowed to block all actions supported by the President.
The President is also reintroducing the 25% cap on the tax rates on manufacturing companies and creating investment incentives for small businesses.
Infrastructure plans, which the private sector would play a key role, also include a push to modernize schools.
Other efforts the President supports are increasing in the minimum wage, increasing exports, strengthening domestic manufacturing, investing in skill training for workers, increasing investments in clean energy and creating incentives for cleaner fossil fuel technology including carbon capture technology for natural gas.
