Businesses hiked spending after the tax bill, but the U.S. economy still awaits that promised big boost

WASHINGTON - Southern California biotech giant Amgen Inc. opened its first state-of-the-art factory in Singapore in 2014 and executives were preparing late last year to pick the spot for a second one.

Then they hit the pause button.

Congress was closing in on a sweeping $1.5-trillion Republican tax bill with major benefits for U.S. businesses. If the legislation passed, domestic locations would vault into stronger competition with sites abroad to land a factory that would cost as much as $300 million to build, said David Meline, Amgen's chief financial officer.

"We were actually considering doing it in December and I said, 'It looks like tax reform might occur,' " he said. "So we held up the decision for a couple of months with the possibility that ... the business case in the U.S. might be competitive with other global choices."

The bill was approved and