Obama to propose tax break for businesses

Midterm elections are now less than two months away, and this week President Obama’s agenda is all about the economy. In Milwaukee on Monday, the president said, ?I am going to keep fighting, every single day, every single hour, every single minute, to turn this economy around, and put our people back to work.?

In Monday’s speech, the president proposed a $50 billion plan to invest in infrastructure across the country?from roads to railways and runways?as well as an expansion of the tax credit for research and experimentation.

Today, in Cleveland, the president will give another speech on the economy, and one of the major initiatives he’s expected to propose would allow businesses to write off 100 percent of their new investments in equipment and plants all at once?rather than over a number of years, which is how businesses can currently deduct investment expenses. The idea is that this would be an incentive for businesses to start immediately investing in goods they need, and hiring more workers.

Asked about Obama’s new plan on Fox News Sunday, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said, ?You always like to see a deathbed conversion, but the fact is, if we’d done this kind of thing nearly a couple of years ago, we’d be in a lot better shape.?

We talk about the president’s new proposals with Andrew Ross Sorkin, chief mergers and acquisitions reporter for our partner, The New York Times. He is also the editor and founder of DealBook, an online daily financial report, and the author of the book ?Too Big to Fail,? which is out in paperback this week.

Richard Copeland also joins us; he is the founder and owner of THOR Construction, the country’s largest African American owned construction company.