34 Democrats Join House GOP to Pass More Business Tax Breaks

The House continued its piecemeal approach to tax extenders today by passing a bill to extend the bonus depreciation tax credit for businesses permanently.

The bill would add $287 billion to the deficit over the next ten years.

Republicans claimed that the tax credit would help create jobs, but Democratic critics scoffed at the idea, highlighting past studies from the Congressional Research Service:

But opponents -- primarily Democrats -- mocked the idea, pointing to Congressional Research Service reports that found the break was a weak stimulus to begin with, and that the stimulative effect is likely to fall even further if the break becomes permanent. "Even as a stimulus, the analysis shows that for every dollar that is invested we get 20 cents of growth," said Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas), a member of the Ways and Means Committee. "A fellow could go bankrupt with that kind of economics, and that's exactly what they would have the country doing and not meeting its other needs while funding something that doesn't work."

The House Democratic leadership urged members to vote NO, citing Republican hypocrisy on tax extenders:

This permanent tax extender comes on the heels of several other extenders that Republicans brought to the Floor without offsets that passed the House last month that would add over $230 billion to the deficit. The combination of this bill and the 13 other permanent tax cuts approved by Republicans on the Ways and Means Committee would add over $800 billion to the deficit over the next decade – more than 35 times the amount that it would cost to renew emergency unemployment insurance for the entire year. It is hypocritical of House Republicans - who have let emergency unemployment insurance expire for more than 3 million Americans, refused to provide a permanent fix to the sustainable growth rate (SGR) for Medicare payments to doctors, and failed to replace the irrational, across-the-board spending cuts imposed by the sequester all on arguments over offsets - to bring this bill to the Floor without paying for it.

The bill passed 258 to 160.

Only 2 Republicans voted against it: John Campbell (CA-35) and Walter Jones (NC-03).

34 Democrats bucked the party and voted for it:

Ron Barber (AZ-02)
John Barrow (GA-12)
Ami Bera (CA-07)
Sanford Bishop (GA-02)
Bruce Braley (IA-01)
Julia Brownley (CA-26)
Cheri Bustos (IL-17)
Henry Cuellar (TX-28)
Bill Enyart (IL-12)
Pete Gallego (TX-23)
John Garamendi (CA-03)
Joe Garcia (FL-26)
Steven Horsford (NV-04)
Annie Kuster (NH-02)
David Loebsack (IA-02)
Dan Maffei (NY-24)
Sean Maloney (NY-18)
Jim Matheson (UT-04)
Mike McIntyre (NC-07)
Grace Meng (NY-06)
Patrick Murphy (FL-18)
Rick Nolan (MN-08)
Gary Peters (MI-14)
Scott Peters (CA-52)
Collin Peterson (MN-07)
Nick Rahall (WV-03)
Raul Ruiz (CA-36)
Dutch Ruppersberger (MD-02)
Bradley Schneider (IL-10)
Carol Shea-Porter (NH-01)
Kysrten Sinema (AZ-09)
Albio Sires (NJ-13)
Dina Titus (NV-01)
Tim Walz (MN-01)