Congress Agrees on Tax, Trade Benefits
WASHINGTON — Congressional negotiators agreed on legislation to extend dozens of trade and tax benefits and block a cut in fees that Medicare pays doctors.
The first of the measures would extend permanent normal trade relations to Vietnam and help Haiti export more apparel to America. A second measure includes the tax breaks, Medicare doctors' fees, and a provision that would allow expanded offshore drilling. The House is moving to vote on the measures tonight, and the Senate is to vote by the week's end, sending them straight to the president if they're passed.
"We have agreements across the board," Kevin Madden, who is a spokesman for the House majority leader, Rep. John Boehner, said.
The trade legislation would extend for two years an American program that allows $27 billion a year in duty-free imports from poor countries. Broader trade preferences for four Andean nations — Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador, would also be extended for six months with an additional six months granted if they finish free-trade talks with America.
Granting Vietnam permanent normal trade relations would clear the way for American companies to benefit from Vietnam's joining the World Trade Organization. The legislation would repeal a Cold War-era measure that links normal trade status to Vietnam's treatment of emigration and human rights. That law must be repealed because it holds out the threat of higher American tariffs for Vietnamese goods, which isn't allowed under WTO rules. Another provision would help Haiti export more apparel to America, and another would reduce duties on a wide variety of products that aren't manufactured in America.
"This legislation strikes the right balance of creating economic opportunities here in the U.S. while also ensuring our own manufacturers are not adversely affected," the House Ways and Means Committee chairman, Rep. Bill Thomas, a Republican of California, said of the trade measure. "It extends a number of important expiring trade incentives for developing countries, and so I urge the House and Senate to approve this legislation quickly."
The National Council of Textile Organizations, which represent American textile workers, disagreed, saying the trade measure, if passed, would cost "thousands of U.S. textile and apparel manufacturing workers" their jobs.
The tax measure contains more than 40 provisions that would reduce taxes for companies and individuals by $38.1 billion over the next five years. The biggest items include renewal and modification of a $16.3 billion research tax credit that will benefit companies such as Hewlett-Packard Co., and Monsanto Corp.
