The incoming chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee says the Senate ought to take the same approach to immigration reform as the House – do it one piece at a time rather than assemble a comprehensive bill. “A provision dealing with just agriculture would pass Congress easily,” Iowa Sen Chuck Grassley told reporters but action on popular items is stalled by advocates of a full-spectrum approach.
“Let the House act first,” Grassley said during a tele-conference, and the Senate could follow suit in the session that opens in January “and do it piecemeal…My advice to our leaders is do it the way I just said.” Ag groups want immigration reform that provides a legal status for farm workers and creates a new guest worker program. An estimated one-half of farm workers are undocumented.
Also a member of the Finance Committee, Grassley said leaders of the Senate and House tax-writing committees were “pre-conferencing” language for revival of tax incentives that expired on Jan 1 including renewable energy credits and the $500,000 deduction for new equipment.
“Will it get done? I sure hope so and I’m going to push that it gets done,” said Grassley. If there is consensus at the committee level, legislation would emerge in December.
The White House says it would veto a tax-cut package that benefits corporations but not the middle class, said Roll Call. The tax package would cost $440 billion over 10 years because it would make permanent 10 of the incentives, said the New York Times. A provision “to allow small businesses to deduct from their taxes all investments in new plants and equipment” would become permanent, at an estimated cost of $73 billion, it said. “The tax credit for wind power, a Democratic priority, would phase out and end after 2017,” said the Times. It would “lose 20 percent of its value in 2016 and 40 percent though much of 2017, vanishing entirely by the final three months of that year.”