SINEMA BLESSES BILL AFTER TAX TWEAKS: Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced last night that he expects every Senate Democrat to vote for the party's expanded reconciliation bill, after Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) demanded changes to its revenue stream that the business community had complained about. — Sinema sought the removal of language tightening the so-called carried interest loophole, and she also won changes "to portions of the corporate minimum tax structure to remove accelerated depreciation of investments from the agreement," POLITICO's Burgess Everett reports. — That won Sinema tepid praise from trade groups that had lobbied against the corporate minimum tax's impact on manufacturers. "Taxing capital expenditures — investments in new buildings, factories, equipment, etc. — is one of the most economically destructive ways you can raise taxes," the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Neil Bradley said in a statement, adding that Sinema "deserves credit for recognizing this and fighting for changes." — Bradley still took aim at the tax added to the bill to recoup the cost of watering down the book tax and removing the carried interest provision, a levy on stock buybacks, which Bradley argued would "only distort the efficient movement of capital to where it can be put to best use and will diminish the value of Americans' retirement savings." — Bradley, along with the National Association of Manufacturers' Jay Timmons both said in statements that their organizations are still reviewing the bill, but continued to bash its drug pricing measures. "We remain skeptical," Timmons said. — The Small Business Investor Alliance , which represents lower-middle market private equity funds and investors, cheered the removal of language targeting the private equity industry's prized carried interest tax rate, though Sinema vowed to work on the issue outside of the current bill. "We are very thankful that she went beyond the headlines and listened to our concerns about the disproportionate negative impact on small business investors that changing carried interest would entail," SBIA President Brett Palmer said of Sinema. "Arizona small businesses have a great champion." PHRMA THREATENS PAYBACK: "Steve Ubl, who leads the nation's top industry group for drugmakers, is offering a final salvo to Congress as Democratic lawmakers inch closer to passing their sweeping reconciliation package that includes drug pricing measures — and threatening swift retaliation if they don't listen," he told POLITICO's Megan Wilson. — PhRMA and its 31 board members " sent a letter to every member of Congress on Thursday afternoon, urging them to vote against the package. PhRMA, not accustomed to losing legislative fights, has waged a multimillion-dollar advocacy campaign against the drug pricing measures, and is crafting contingency plans if they fail." — "In addition to hinting at running campaign ads against Democrats in tough races this fall, the industry is assessing its legal options and pondering future regulatory or legislative fixes. 'Regardless of the outcome in the coming weeks, this fight isn't over,' Ubl said in an interview. 'Few associations have all the tools of modern political advocacy at their disposal in the way that PhRMA does.'" MIXED SIGNALS: Even as the Business Roundtable signed on to a letter yesterday imploring senators to knock out the reconciliation bill's corporate minimum tax and decrying the legislation's potential impact on manufacturers, one of the group's top leaders was participating in a virtual roundtable with President Joe Biden where she endorsed the bill as-is. — Thursday was not the first time General Motors CEO Mary Barra has split from the business lobby she helps lead, as Hailey Fuchs explored earlier this year , nor is it the first time the Biden administration has held her up as an ally of legislation reviled by the business community. "You started all this," the president told Barra during the roundtable. — "Thank you for the opportunity to voice our support for the Inflation Reduction Act," Barra told Biden during the event. Barra took over at the beginning of the year as chair of the Business Roundtable, whose membership comprises the chief executives of the country's largest corporations. — A day after Schumer and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) announced the framework for the bill, the Roundtable said on Twitter that the book tax, which is being revised to the benefit of manufacturers at Sinema's behest, would "undermine proven bipartisan incentives that encourage capital investment." — Barra didn't address the bill's tax provisions explicitly from the White House's roundtable. But "as currently proposed," she said, the measure would "help drive further investments in American manufacturing and sustainable, stable and secure supply chains."
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