Jobs Bill Update

The Senate on Monday night paved the way for final approval of a package of tax cuts for businesses that hire jobless workers, setting the stage for Wednesday approval of the $15 billion jobs creation measure.

The three Republican Senators from New England again provided the crucial votes to invoke cloture and force final action on the bill tomorrow, which will provide Democrats and the White House with their first real legislative victory of this year.

Breaking ranks were Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA), Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) and Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME).  One Democrat voted against cloture, that was Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE).

"This bill provides incentives for businesses to hire new employees," said Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT).  "And it encourages businesses to invest in building their operations."

"These proposals will help to get Americans back to work," Baucus added.

The plan was paid for by what is basically an accounting trick, which involves forcing companies with over $1 billion in assets to accelerate the payment of estimated corporate taxes in 2014 and 2015, with the amounts being exactly offset a year after those payments.

It results in revenue to the federal government being shifted into an earlier fiscal year, and therefore "pays" for the loss of revenue associated with the tax cuts for companies that hire jobless workers.

Evidently it didn't worry the business lobby, because I couldn't even get the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to comment on the matter last week.

One note on the cost of the package.  I have seen a variety of figures of late, but I am sticking with the $15 billion figure.  

The bill does extend the authorization for mass transit and highway projects through the end of this year, which would funnel another $20 billion into those projects, but that's money which was already dedicated to that specific need.

In other words, there isn't $20 billion more in this bill for that purpose.

Yep, those are some of the things we debate amongst ourselves in the Press Gallery.  It's a wild life, let me tell you.

The Senate on Monday night paved the way for final approval of a package of tax cuts for businesses that hire jobless workers, setting the stage for Wednesday approval of the $15 billion jobs creation measure. The three Republican Senators from New England again provided the crucial votes to invoke ...