Salceda to Cabinet: Settle your policy issues
Credit to Author: Tempo Desk| Date: Thu, 12 Sep 2019 16:30:11 +0000
ALBAY Rep. Joey Salceda obviously got irritated by policy disagreements among Cabinet officials on the Corporate Income Tax and Incentive Rationalization Act (CITIRA) during its recent deliberations at the House Ways and Means Committee which he chairs, and criticized them in no uncertain terms.
“I concede you have honest disagreements but please don’t use Congress as playground for your policy battles, or worse, use us as proxies or mercenaries for your skirmishes, because you are all alter egos of only one President,” he told the cabinet officials.
He urged the Cabinet officials to settle their issues with the President first and “avoid using Congress as playground for policy battles that generate confusions, send wrong signals, delay the legislation process and create uncertainties among investors.”
CITIRA, the second package of the administration’s Comprehensive Tax Reform Program, seeks to reduce the corporate income tax rate from 30% to 20% for some one million businesses in the country, and rationalize incentives for some 4,100 firms which pay only 5%. The President has designated CITIRA as the national response to the US-China Trade War. He endorsed it in January 2018 and sought repeatedly its congressional approval in consecutive SONAs.
The measure is projected to create 1.566 million jobs and incrementally expand the GDP by 3.6% annually. Some cabinet officials, however, lately proposrd to revise the transition period for the fiscal incentives, which snagged the bill’s passage.
“I appeal to our Cabinet members to settle their policy disagreements first with the President and within the Cabinet. I honestly feel Cabinet members are the ones sowing confusion, sending wrong signals and worst, delaying the l
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