U.S. Rep Nita Lowey last week called on her colleagues to pass tax credit proposals to spur job growth.
Lowey outlined three specific targets in 2010: tax credits for companies to create jobs or increase workers wages; incentives for companies investing in new facilities and equipment; and an increase in maximum federal loan guarantees.
“People follow incentives,” Dr. Leonard Schleifer, founder and CEO of Regeneron Pharmaceuticals in Tarrytown, said at a news conference. “If you provide an incentive to make an investment, people will make an investment. If you provide an incentive to create jobs, people will create jobs. But, I don”™t think we should be viewing this as the solution. It”™s a little bit to prime the pump to get things going again so we”™re not stuck in neutral. Because, at the end of the day, there”™s only so much incentives can do.”
Biotechnology company Regeneron has “added almost 400 jobs in the past two years and now have more than 1,000 employees.”
Regeneron expects to hire another 435 employees during 2010, Schleifer said.
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“We”™re proud that our success has had a substantial, indirect benefit on the local economy,” Schleifer said. “The buildings we occupy provide hundreds of construction jobs as we built out these new facilities. We are now fitting out an entire building behind us that will provide additional employment so desperately needed for so many in the construction business in Westchester County.”
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That ripple effect, Schleifer said, was in part possible because of a combined $3 million in tax provisions secured through the Worker, Homeownership & Business Assistance Act and The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.
“This is a difficult time,” Lowey said. “I know that the area where you can create the most jobs is small businesses. Creating jobs is the most pressing economic priority. This winter the House passed the jobs for Main Street Act to invest $75 billion in job training, school renovations and assistance for small businesses. We still have to wait for the Senate to move.”
Lowey has also sponsored the Small Business Access to Capital Act “to increase the limits on 7(a) loan guarantees under the U.S. Small Business Administration from $2 million to $5 million.”
U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-NY, last week introduced legislation for a job creation tax credit with fellow senators from Michigan, Arkansas and Pennsylvania.
“While some sectors of the economy are doing better, middle class families and small businesses across New York are struggling in this economic crisis,” Gillibrand said, in a statement. “We need to take aggressive action to help businesses create good-paying jobs and get New Yorkers back to work ”¦ It could create millions of new jobs at a time when unemployment is continuing to rise and nearly 850,000 New Yorkers are out work.”
