According to the New Markets Tax Credit Coalition,  last week, the House and Senate were working on a tax extender agreement that may also include certain small business tax and infrastructure provisions.

Both Chambers have passed H.R. 4213, the Tax Extenders Act of 2009, which both include $5 billion in Credit authority for New Markets in 2010, and other individual and business tax provisions. In addition, the House recently passed the Small Business and Infrastructure Jobs Tax Act of 2010 (H.R. 4849) which included Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) relief for NMTC investors on Qualified Equity Investments (QEIs) made from March 15, 2010 through January 1, 2012. This bill also included an extension of Recovery Act terms for Build America Bonds through 2013 (estimated to cost $7.5 Billion) and exemptions from AMT for interest earned on tax-exempt and other private activity bonds.

According to the NMTC Coalition, last week the House began working on an extender package for HR 4213, which contains NMTC extension and potential provisions included in the HR 4849, including Build America Bond provisions and AMT relief for New Markets. “One of the reasons for this piecemeal approach is that some of these provisions (although not NMTC) are controversial and unlikely to win approval in the Senate Finance Committee.”

We look forward to the outcomes of these votes in hopes that NMTC extensions are granted to sustain and strengthen this vital program that has provided important development resources to numerous Ohio businesses and neighborhoods. For more information, visit www.NewMarketsTaxCreditCoalition.org.

On the radio show hosted by former Sen. Fred Thompson, New York lieutenant governor Betsy McCaughey stated that the House’s proposed health care bill contained a provision that would institute mandatory counseling sessions telling seniors how “to do what’s in society’s best interest…and cut your life short.” Citing page 425 of the bill, McCaughey claimed that “the Congress would make it mandatory … that every five years, people in Medicare have a required counseling session that will tell them how to end their life sooner, how to decline nutrition, how to decline being hydrated, how to go into hospice care … all to do what’s in society’s best interest … and cut your life short.”

Here’s what the bill says, “An explanation by the practitioner of the continuum of end-of-life services and supports available, including palliative care and hospice, and benefits for such services and supports that are available under this title.” The accepted definition of end-of-life planning means thinking ahead about the care you would like to receive at the end of your life – which may include the choice to reject extraordinary measures of life support, or the choice to embrace them.  The section would require Medicare to pay for, not mandate, some end-of-life planning counseling sessions with a health care practitioner once every 5 years. It is clear that McCaughey’s distorted interpretation of the content of page 425 was offered not to stimulate debate but to frame an atmosphere of fear and mistrust.

Several television ads sponsored by Patients United Now claim that Canadian citizens survived serious illness only by leaving the country to get treatment in the U.S. because of the length of their wait for service in the Canadian health care system, claiming “Washington wants to bring Canadian-style health care to the U.S.” The reality is that no one is advocating for a government run health care system. The president and the leaders of both parties resound with the words of Sen. Max Baucus, Chair of Finance Committee, “single-payer (government run health care) is not going to get even to first base.” Yet the ads continue for what purpose? Not to stimulate debate but to frame an atmosphere of fear and mistrust.

There was a time in this country that I can remember when someone or some group publically making a misstatement or an outright lie, the journalistic community would stand up on their hind legs and demand accountability, and there was an American public that had not abdicated their role in the republic and given place to apathy believing everything we are fed. Naked again.

What if we spent just a little air time or political sound bites
around the relatively minimal increases in strategies that put dollars
directly on the street. The New Markets Tax Credit program will see a
$3 billion temporary increase and the Community Development Finance
Institution program a $100 million one year increase and a $200
million administrative budget increase enabling funds to flow directly
to main street America. These programs and others like them are a
small but critical part of doing what some of us have been doing for
some time, revitalizing the economy. Yet I’ve not heard a minute of
press time or political air time to focusing on what could work. It is
good to remember you can’t believe everything you hear.

Also, CDFIs, a key player in local credit availability, have not yet been factored in to the equation. It is my opinion that the solution to our economic malstrom will come from the bottom up not the top down. Small business & small banks

There does seem to be a silver lining as Chairman Frank (Financial Institution Committee) starts hearings this week on stimulous funding for small business and consumers. Watch this one.

But before, in haste, I fall on the sword of rhetoric I remembered another inaugural address from eight years ago. This administration will embody “a new commitment to live out our nation’s promise through civility, courage, compassion, and character.” We will “show purpose without arrogance…Civility is not a tactic or a sentiment. It is a determined choice of trust over cynicism, or community over chaos.” Even as these uplifting words were being delivered eight years ago, that new administration was in the process of demonstrating that its intentions were less than compassionate and more than conservative.

It’s with sadness that I withhold judgment of this new set of lofty ideals. The proof is in the “putting” our money where his mouth is.