Senate Republicans are open to supporting White House proposals to expand business tax credits for research and development but not before Congress decides to extend the Bush tax credits that will expire at the end of the year, U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander said Tuesday.
Alexander, the chairman of the Senate Republican Caucus, told the Chattanooga Pachyderm Club that taxes shouldn’t be raised during a recession, even on wealthy Americans whose small businesses hire most workers.
“The first thing we need to do is to make sure that we don’t raise taxes” by allowing the Bush tax credits to expire at the end of the year, Alexander said. “That is going to take most of September. Then we can turn our attention to seeing if we have money to reduce taxes.”
In a speech planned today in Cleveland, Ohio, Obama will ask Congress to let businesses quickly write off 100 percent of their spending on new plants and equipment through 2011. The move is the latest by the White House to help spur an economy that is expected to take years to regain most of the jobs lost over the past three years.
Alexander said he has supported such R&D investment credits in the past. But Tennessee’s senior senator said the best way to revive the economy is to lower taxes and the deficit and provide a more stable environment for all businesses.