BUSINESS GROUPS HAMMER RECONCILIATION DEAL: Business groups targeted by the reconciliation bill's revenue raisers came out firing at Democrats today, but not all of the business community reacted with hostility. — "This proposal is nothing more than a repackaging of the same bad ideas with a new name slapped on it," National Association of Manufacturers CEO Jay Timmons said in a statement Wednesday night. Timmons, whose trade group started running a six-figure ad campaign blasting the reconciliation bill's initial cornerstone of drug pricing reforms, called those policies "no less destructive." — He also took aim at permitting reforms that Democratic leaders promised Manchin they would pass alongside the reconciliation package, urging "any member of Congress who is voting for the bill based solely on that language" to "instead push to have a standalone bill considered. Lawmakers who support manufacturing in America should oppose this reconciliation bill. It will make manufacturing less competitive and America economically weaker." — The American Investment Council , which represents the private equity industry, returned to an argument that appeared to help keep its pet issue out of Democrats' line of fire during the previous reconciliation process, when it lobbied hard against changes to the lower tax rate on a form of compensation called carried interest. — "Over 74% of private equity investment went to small businesses last year," the council's president and CEO Drew Maloney said in a statement. "As our economy faces serious headwinds, Washington should not move forward with a new tax on the private capital that is helping local employers survive and grow." — Meanwhile Neil Bradley, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce 's top lobbyist, said in a statement this morning that the reconciliation bill's tax provisions "would discourage investment and undermine economic growth," and described the drug pricing reforms as "price controls that would limit American innovation. Both will make our economic problems worse." — But one business constituency threw its support behind Democrats' tax measures. The Retail Industry Leaders Association, which represents retail giants like Target, CVS Health, Home Depot and Walgreens, applauded Manchin and Schumer for reaching a deal that they argue improves corporate tax equity. — "Retailers were critical of earlier efforts by the Biden administration to raise the corporate rate to 25 percent or more, but supportive of efforts to enact a minimum tax and more efficiently collect taxes that were legally owed but uncollected," Michael Hanson , the group's senior executive vice president for public affairs, said in a statement, arguing that retailers "historically paid an effective tax rate more than 10 percentage points higher than the average U.S. industry." — "The agreement struck by Senator Manchin with Leader Schumer accomplishes all of the objectives retailers have set out to achieve throughout the debate on corporate taxes: permanent lower rates, fairness to ensure all are contributing, and better enforcement to collect what is legally owed," he added. PHARMA'S 'HAIL MARY': "Drugmakers are waking up to the reality that Democrats' revived budget reconciliation bill has a shot at enactment, and are waging an intense lobbying campaign on Capitol Hill and over the airwaves in a last-minute attempt to bring it down," POLITICO's Megan Wilson reports. — "The bill would allow Medicare for the first time to negotiate prices of some of the most costly drugs used by American seniors, threatening billions in revenue, and punish drug companies if they raise prices faster than the rate of inflation. For the pharmaceutical players impacted most by the bill, it's the equivalent of a five alarm fire." — "'The ground is shifting. It's starting to sink in for them, what the bill does,' one industry lobbyist told POLITICO about the sentiment among pharmaceutical executives at a recent gathering. 'The CEOs who have significant concerns are very engaged.'" — "That gathering, an annual planning meeting for the industry's most prominent trade group, took place at the Conrad Washington hotel last week — hosting leaders of some of the largest drugmakers in the country." — This week, executives from the Biotechnology Innovation Organization's members are flying in, and while "the group will continue to urge lawmakers to vote against the bill as long as Medicare negotiation is included … part of BIO's advocacy strategy includes also pushing for policies to blunt the damage." ATLANTIC COUNCIL CUTS TIES WITH KOCH INITIATIVE: "The Atlantic Council is parting ways with a Charles Koch-funded foreign policy strategy initiative after staff at the Washington think tank raised concerns about the arrangement and the initiative's position on U.S. policy toward Russia," our Hailey Fuchs and Betsy Woodruff Swan report. — "Koch, who is a major funder of conservative, libertarian and philanthropic initiatives, provided the Council with a $4.5 million grant in 2020. The money was designed to set up the New American Engagement Initiative, a national security effort that planned to use the funds to support scholars and their efforts, which was housed under the Council's Scowcroft Center for Security and Strategy." — "In March 2021, the initiative co-director, Mathew Burrows, and Emma Ashford, a senior fellow with the effort, penned an article that argued the U.S. should not center its approach to Russia around human rights. Nearly two dozen Atlantic Council staffers, including several former ambassadors, responded in a letter disassociating themselves with the article. At the time, some Atlantic Council experts suggested to POLITICO that Ashford and initiative co-director Chris Preble — two alumni of the Koch-funded Cato Institute — were brought on because of Koch money." — "In an email sent Wednesday morning to its board of directors and obtained by POLITICO, Atlantic Council President Frederick Kempe announced that the New American Engagement Initiative would soon be housed under the Stimson Center, a significantly smaller foreign policy oriented D.C. think tank. He excluded any mention of the original funder of the initiative." SPOTTED at a reception in honor of the House Chiefs of Staff Association at the Oracle townhouse hosted by the National Beer Wholesalers Association: Bradley Bottoms with Rep. John Garamendi (D-Calif.), Jimmy Peacock with Rep. Ashley Hinson (R-Iowa), Desiree Koetzle with Rep. Pete Stauber (R-Minn.), Patrick Mocete with Rep. Young Kim (R-Calif.), Rachel Harris with Rep. Debbie Lesko (R-Ariz.) and Joe Lillis with Rep. Billy Long (R-Mo.).
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