WHEREAS, the U.S. Department of Treasury's New Markets Tax Credit (NMTC) program has provided incentives for the private financing of a broad range of local development activities in economically distressed urban and rural communities, including charter schools, health care facilities, business loans and equity investments, for-sale affordable housing, retail centers and other commercial and mixed-use real estate projects; and

WHEREAS, the NMTC program has made more than 200 tax credit allocation awards to Community Development Entities (CDE), which thus far have raised $7.7 billion in private equity investment for low-income communities throughout the country; and

WHEREAS, the General Accounting Office (GAO) released a report in January of 2007 concluding that most NMTC investments would not have occurred in the absence of the credit, and that corporate and individual investors increased their investments in low-income communities due to the credit, and

WHEREAS, in the first three years of implementation, use of the NMTC helped to create or retain 72,000 construction jobs and 20,000 full-time equivalent jobs, and generated financing for the construction or rehabilitation of over 43 million square feet of real estate in low-income communities; and

WHEREAS, the NMTC has stimulated loans and equity investments in a full range of businesses within urban and rural economically distressed communities, including small technology firms, manufacturers, start-ups, neighborhood retail stores, and inner-city shopping centers, creating local jobs and building a tax base in poor communities; and

WHEREAS, CDEs are successfully targeting investments to areas with poverty and unemployment rates above what is required by law; and

WHEREAS, the NMTC program is set to expire at the end of 2007, and failure to reauthorize would disrupt the availability of credits, cost opportunities for hundreds of communities to materially improve the lives of their residents, reduce investor confidence, and hinder implementation by the community development entities and financial institutions that have made considerable investments to deploy the NMTC program; and

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that the U.S. Conference of Mayors calls on the Congress to enact a long-term reauthorization of the New Markets Tax Credit program; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the U.S. Conference of Mayors urges the Congress and the Department of Treasury to incorporate in future NMTC program allocations a special consideration for applications that involve local governments as a lead or integral partner, to provide complementary resources and help maximize the benefits derived by low-income residents from revitalization efforts in their targeted communities.