Senator Outlines Her Priorities to Stand up for ND Workers, Families, Small Businesses, Retirees, and State’s Energy Sector

GRAND FORKS, N.D. - U.S. Senator Heidi Heitkamp today launched a listening tour to hear from North Dakotans about their priorities and concerns regarding the upcoming debate on tax reform.

uring discussions in Fargo and Grand Forks, Heitkamp met with small business owners, workers, families, and retirees, and outlined her goals for any tax reform legislation that comes before Congress, while getting feedback about North Dakotans' tax related concerns.

"The North Dakotans I met with today see tax reform as an opportunity to boost their businesses and keep more hard-earned money in their own pockets and savings accounts. It's important to put their needs first as we begin the discussion on reform," Heitkamp said. "I've always said that I'm willing to work with Republicans and Democrats on comprehensive, permanent tax reform as long as it benefits North Dakotans. As North Dakota's former tax commissioner, I understand how complicated the tax code and any reforms to it are. The main goal of any tax reform bill should be helping our state's small businesses owners, workers, families, and retirees who have worked harder than ever, but too often are still struggling. As we begin the debate on tax reform in Washington, I'll fight to level the playing field for North Dakotans like those I met with today. We must ensure that retirements are protected, that we're making it easier and less costly to file taxes, and that any plan that moves forward is fiscally responsible for our nation. I'll bring these priorities to the debate and won't back down from doing the right thing for North Dakota families and small businesses."

For tax reform to work for North Dakotans, Heitkamp is working to make sure that any proposal:

* Levels the playing field for North Dakota workers, families, and small businesses.

* Protects and secures retirements.

* Makes it easier and less costly for families and businesses to file taxes.

* Is fiscally responsible.

Heitkamp will hold additional events to hear from North Dakotans in the coming weeks.

Earlier this month, Heitkamp joined President Trump as he outlined his broad goals for tax reform in a speech in Mandan. She also joined the president and a bipartisan group of senators at the White House for a discussion on tax reform, where she made clear that any tax reform bill must support North Dakota's working families, small business owners, and farmers and ranchers.

Heitkamp has used every discussion with the administration on tax reform to highlight the need to include in any reform bill her bipartisan legislation that would find a viable path forward for coal. Specifically, her bill would extend and expand a key tax credit to encourage technological innovation that would reduce carbon emissions. The legislation -- endorsed by a wide cross-section of coal companies, utilities, environmental groups, and labor organizations - would encourage development and use of carbon capture, utilization and storage technologies and processes--while also spurring adoption of low-carbon technologies to transform carbon pollution into useable products.

As North Dakota's former tax commissioner, Heitkamp has long been a strong proponent of bolstering small businesses, which employ close to 195,000 workers across the state. She has continually fought to level the playing field for small businesses and to encourage entrepreneurial growth across North Dakota, by:

* Leveling the playing field for brick and mortar shops. In May, Heitkamp helped reintroduce the bipartisan Marketplace Fairness Act to give states the option of leveling the playing field for local mom and pop businesses in North Dakota and across the country or to continue allowing out-of-state internet retailers to conduct transactions without collecting sales tax owed. Since her time as North Dakota's tax commissioner, when North Dakota attempted to require catalog retailers collect and remit the sales tax the state and municipalities were owed on sales, Heitkamp has been working to make sure local businesses are not at a tax disadvantage. The case was litigated in the U.S. Supreme Court case, Quill v. North Dakota, where it was decided that Congress has the ultimate power to decide the issue.

* Encouraging startup innovation. In March, Heitkamp introduced the bipartisan Supporting America's Innovators Act with U.S. Senator Dean Heller (R-NV) to help encourage investments in small businesses and startups in smaller communities. The legislation passed the Senate earlier this month. In the Fargo-Moorhead region, about a third of startups identified accessing early stage funding as the greatest hurdle to growing their business. Heitkamp introduced her Startup Entrepreneur Empowerment Delivery (SEED) Act last year to tackle that problem by investing in promising startups in ten small cities in rural states.

* Making sure small businesses have a seat at the table. In December 2016, Heitkamp and Heller's bipartisan SEC Small Business Advocate Act to make sure small businesses and startups have a seat at the table as new federal rules are made was signed into law.

* Bringing federal small business leaders to North Dakota. In January, now-U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) Administrator Linda McMahon accepted Heitkamp's invitation to visit North Dakota to see firsthand the importance of growing public-private partnerships that bolster the state's small businesses and startups. Heitkamp brought then-SBA Administrator Maria Contreras-Sweet to Fargo in 2015 for the first U.S. Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship field hearing in North Dakota.

Read this original document at: https://www.heitkamp.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=16503B5D-80BA-4D99-A28E-B12F26ACD869