National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) President and CEO Jay Timmons released the following statement on the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act conference report: 

 

“America will be better off than we are today once this tax reform bill becomes law. This legislation represents historic progress for manufacturers and for all Americans. As manufacturers across our country have said many times, tax reform done right will empower us to create more well-paying jobs and invest and build more right here in America. According to the NAM’s latest Manufacturers’ Outlook Survey, a pro-growth tax code will encourage manufacturers to increase capital spending, expand their businesses and hire more workers—and nearly half will increase employee wages and benefits.

 

“While this bill is good news, we can never quit looking at what other countries are doing every single day to take away our mantle of economic leadership. The NAM has fought for years—decades, really—for even lower rates than provided in this legislation for manufacturers of all sizes, especially small manufacturers organized as pass-through entities. We will not let up. We will work to ensure this legislation functions as intended. 

 

“We will continue our fight and will rally manufacturing workers and their families to encourage more progress in the years ahead. Today, we’re calling for our government to produce a comprehensive study every three years to compare how the U.S. tax code stacks up with our competitors around the world. The last time true tax reform was enacted was in 1986, 31 years ago. If we wait until 2048 to revisit the tax code, we will no doubt discover that we have fallen significantly behind once again. For the future of every manufacturing worker in America, our elected leaders must constantly strive to ensure our country’s business climate is far better than merely average. Manufacturers and the NAM will never stop leading that fight.”

 

Earlier this week, the NAM released its final quarterly Manufacturers’ Outlook Survey for 2017, which showed the highest level of optimism among manufacturers in the survey’s 20-year history and three-quarters of respondents favoring the current tax reforms being debated in Congress. Three-fifths of manufacturers surveyed said they would lose opportunities to grow their businesses if tax reform did not pass, and an overwhelming two-thirds of manufacturers surveyed would consider a vote against tax reform as a vote against their businesses. In addition, 63 percent of respondents said comprehensive business tax reform would encourage their company to increase capital spending, and more than half said they would expand their businesses (57.9 percent) and hire more workers (53.8 percent), while nearly half would increase employee wages and benefits (48.8 percent). Further information on the survey is available here.