Obama,
By Agri-Pulse Staff
© Copyright Agri-Pulse Communications, Inc.
President Barack Obama welcomed the House vote too, highlighting “measures that would bring much-needed relief to our nation’s families and businesses during these hard economic times.” He said the bill “extends vital unemployment benefits to help those Americans who are fighting to find a good job, and provides tax cuts for individuals and businesses to help support the economic recovery. It helps extend Small Business Administration lending efforts so our nation’s small businesses can get the credit they need to create jobs and grow.”
Obama also pointed out that the bill:
- “includes funding to settle the long-standing discrimination claims that African-American farmers have had against the federal government and to resolve the Cobell case, helping address these painful chapters in our history.”
- “fully pays for its non-emergency measures by closing loopholes that allow corporations to avoid taxes by shifting their profits overseas, and by ensuring that investment managers pay the same tax rates on their earned income that the typical American worker pays.”
Obama said more congressional action is needed on “health care benefits for the unemployed, assistance to states to maintain health services and avoid layoffs of teachers, police officers and firefighters, and proposals I have put forth to support small businesses and help consumers invest in energy efficiency.” He called on the Senate to act quickly to finalize the bill “so I can sign it into law.”
Echoing President Obama, ASA President Rob Joslin said that “ASA urges the Senate to also pass H.R. 4213 when they return from the Memorial Day recess, so that it can be sent to the President, and the biodiesel tax credit can be reinstated. Extension of the biodiesel tax credit is long overdue and has been continually held up for reasons unrelated to biodiesel.”
Senate Agriculture Committee Chair Blanche Lincoln
(D-AR) said
An ASA statement noted that renewable biodiesel
has provided a significant market opportunity for
To press the issue with the Senate, ASA has renewed the nationwide Action Alert to its members and supporters asking them to contact their senators to urge them to pass the biodiesel tax credit extension immediately upon their return from the Memorial Day recess. “I strongly encourage all soybean farmers to contact their senators directly over the next week, in-person, via phone and email, to explain the need for the Senate to extend the biodiesel tax incentive,” Joslin said. “The biodiesel tax incentive expired on December 31, 2009, and since that time, biodiesel production and consumption has dramatically declined, biodiesel production facilities have closed, and thousands of biodiesel industry workers have lost their jobs.”
For more coverage of the tax extenders bill, go to: www.agri-pulse.com/20100528H4_Extenders_Passed.asp
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