Senate OKs jobs, transportation bill

Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif. (center), accompanied by Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., and Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., gestures during a news conference Wednesday on Capitol Hill in Washington after the Senate passed the jobs bill. (AP Photo by Harry Hamburg)

By Andrew Taylor
AP Writer

Washington — U.S. companies that hire unemployed workers will get a temporary payroll tax holiday under a bill that easily won final congressional approval Wednesday.

The bipartisan 68-29 vote in the Senate sends the legislation to the White House, where President Barack Obama has promised to sign it into law.

It will be the first of several election-year jobs bills promised by Democrats to be enacted into law, though there’s plenty of skepticism about whether the measure will do much to create jobs. Optimistic estimates predict the tax break could generate perhaps 250,000 jobs through the end of the year, but that would be just a tiny fraction of the 8.4 million jobs lost since the start of the recession.

The measure is part of a campaign by Democrats to show that they are addressing the U.S. unemployment problem, but that message was overshadowed by Congress’ feverish final push to pass health care overhaul legislation by this weekend.

“It is the first of what I hope will be a series of jobs packages that help to continue to put people back to work,” Obama said after the vote.

The bill that passed Wednesday contains about $18 billion in tax breaks and a $20 billion infusion of cash into highway and transit programs.

Among other things, it exempts businesses that hire the unemployed from paying the 6.2 percent Social Security payroll tax through December and gives employers an additional $1,000 credit if new workers stay on the job a full year. Taxpayers will have to reimburse Social Security for the lost revenue.

“This is just the first, certainly not the last, piece of legislation that we will put forward in relation to jobs,” said sponsor Charles Schumer, a Democrat. “If we don’t create jobs, the economy will not move forward.”

It also extends highway and mass transit programs through the end of the year and pumps in $20 billion in time for the spring construction season. That money would make up for lower-than-expected gasoline tax revenues.

The measure is modest compared with last year’s $862 billion economic stimulus bill, and the bulk of the hiring tax breaks would probably go to companies that were likely to hire new workers anyway.

“Most businesses that are going to be able to take the credit were probably going to hire the worker anyway,” said Bill Rys of the National Federation of Independent Business, which lobbies for small business. “Until business picks up for small business owners, there’s not going to be a huge incentive to add new workers.”

Much of the bill is financed over the coming decade by cracking down on offshore tax havens, though it would add $13 billion to the debt in the coming three years.

“When are we going to stop spending money around here as if there’s no tomorrow?” said Sen. Judd Gregg, a Republican. “Because pretty soon there’s going to be no tomorrow for our children as we add this debt to their backs.”

In addition to the hiring tax incentives and highway money, the bill extends a tax break for small businesses buying new equipment and modestly expands an initiative that helps state and local governments finance infrastructure projects.