AMT President Urges Congress to Assist Small Manufacturers

Testifying before the House Small Business Committee, Douglas K. Woods, President of AMT-The Association For Manufacturing Technology, told members of the committee that the effects of tax breaks and other provisions within the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act ? the stimulus law ? have so far been minimal on the struggling manufacturing industry.

Woods said that AMT supported several business tax provisions that were included in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The top two were a one-year extension through 2009 of the 50 percent bonus depreciation on new equipment purchases, and the enhanced Section 179 expensing on new and used investments.

?Our companies have been faced with customers who normally might be encouraged by these provisions to invest in equipment, but who either cannot get the working capital to do so, have sunk into loss positions this year and no longer qualify, or who are just too reluctant to make investments until they have a better sense of where the economy is headed,? he said. ?We really need the depreciation incentives extended through at least 2010 to get the intended stimulative effect from them."

?I truly do believe that the future holds promise and opportunity if our industry can make it through the next six months,? Woods said. But ?without a strong manufacturing technology base in America, the United States will end up trading our dependency on foreign oil for a new dependency on foreign technology. And that prospect is, for the future of our country, frightening.?