The campaign is also working to win over some Congressional Democrats and conservative Republicans who argue that the idea is a corporate bailout and that the companies will use repatriated cash for dividend payments instead of for job creation.
A 2009 Congressional Research Service study found “no evidence of a corresponding increase in domestic investment or employment” from the 843 corporations that brought back a collective $312 billion in 2004.
Still, some lobbyists say White House officials have privately expressed interest in the idea and they are optimistic the administration could come around if it can be used as a bargaining chip in negotiations with Republicans.
A recent U.S. Chamber of Commerce study found that the U.S. economy would expand by as much as 4 percent over two to three years, allowing businesses to create about 2.9 million jobs, if lawmakers agree to a repatriation tax holiday.
Win America has hired ex-Rep. Jim McCrery (R-La.), the former ranking member on the Ways and Means Committee, to lobby House Republicans and Mark Isakowitz, the former director of federal governmental relations at the National Federation of Independent Businesses, to work centrist Republicans. On the Democratic side, they’ve pulled in Jeff Forbes, former chief of staff to Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee and a member of the Joint Committee on Deficit Reduction.
The campaign has also been working with Let Freedom Ring, a tea party group that helped drive the Republican Study Committee’s Cut, Cap and Balance mantra.
Rep. Kevin Brady, a Texas Republican on the Ways and Means Committee, introduced legislation in May that would call for an immediate tax holiday allowing companies to repatriate overseas profits at a 5.25 percent rate. And Sen. Kay Hagan (D-N.C.) is considering whether to introduce a similar bill.
The team of lobbyists see three potential ways to get the job done: Get the super committee to take it up; include it with a series of expiring tax provisions; or attach it to the president’s jobs bill.
With patent reform completed, repatriation is among the industry’s top priorities, along with completion of several outstanding free-trade agreements and an extension of the research-and- development tax credit.
Correction: Sept. 20, 2011
An earlier version of this article misstated that the Service Employees International Union supports the idea of a repatriation tax holiday. The SEIU's former president, Andy Stern, has endorsed the idea, but the union has not.
Rep. Bill Cassidy has his blood drawn by Alesha Barbour during a free hepatitis screening in the Rayburn House Office Building hosted by the Congressional Viral Hepatitis Caucus to recognize "National Viral Hepatitis Testing Day."
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