KEY VOTE: Cosponsorship of the Accelerate Long-term Investment Growth Now (ALIGN) Act

KEY VOTE: Senate · Apr 22, 2021

Heritage Action supports the Accelerate Long-term Investment Growth Now (ALIGN) Act and will include COSPONSORSHIP of this legislation in our scorecard.

The Accelerate Long-term Investment Growth Now (ALIGN) Act (S. 1166 / H.R. 2558), introduced by Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Penn.) and Rep. Jodey Arrington (R-Texas), would make permanent one of the most pro-American worker, pro-growth policies contained in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA): full and immediate expensing.

Full and immediate expensing, which under current law is set to begin phasing out at the end of 2022, allows businesses to deduct the entire cost of domestic capital investments—such as machinery and other equipment—from their taxable income. This creates a tax-free entrepreneurship environment that encourages new, long-term business investment leading to more jobs and higher wages for American workers.

Because expensing primarily applies to new investment, it produces long term economic growth more than any government subsidy ever could. According to a study by the Tax Foundation, making the TCJA’s expensing provision permanent would increase GDP by 0.9 percent, wage growth by 0.8 percent, capital stock by 2.2 percent, and full-time equivalent jobs by 172,300. When paired with making the rest of the TCJA permanent, The Heritage Foundation estimates permanent expensing would increase the projected growth from the original reform by about 60 percent.

While the benefits of the TCJA are undeniable and have been a boon to the U.S. economy and American taxpayers, President Biden would have you believe otherwise. For example, President Biden has continued to perpetuate the lie that the TCJA’s reduction of the corporate tax rate didn’t benefit workers. However, in the two years after passage the unemployment rate fell to a 50-year low and wages increased by more than $1,400 above the previous trend for production and nonsupervisory workers. Conversely, President Biden’s massive tax-and-spend plan would unwisely reverse the economic gains that resulted from the TCJA and ultimately hinder our nation’s economic recovery process.

Helping boost American business investment and worker’s wages, particularly when our economy is emerging from the pandemic, should be a bipartisan goal. Instead of following President Biden down a path of economic uncertainty, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle should work together to pass the Accelerate Long-term Investment Growth Now (ALIGN) Act.

Heritage Action supports the Accelerate Long-term Investment Growth Now (ALIGN) Act and will include COSPONSORSHIP of this legislation in our scorecard.