Within the hour, it’s likely that the veterans hiring measure, which offers tax credits of up to $9,600 to businesses for hiring returning veterans, will pass the Senate, attached to a measure that makes it easier for government contractors to cheat on their taxes. Two things stand out with the passage of this. Obviously, it [...]

The sort-of jobs measure announced Friday by Democrats had it all: paeans to veterans, tax breaks for businesses, an elimination of leverage for tax compliance with government contractors. Something for everyone in Washington, in other words. Which is why it advanced in the Senate by a vote of 94-1. In a 94-1 roll call, senators [...]

The latest in a series of jobs measures that will get a Senate vote offers a twist on what we’ve seen over the past several weeks. First of all, the bill is not paid for with a surtax on millionaires. Democrats have enough votes from their counterparts on that for their point to be made. [...]

The White House wants you to believe that the American Jobs Act is loaded up with bipartisan solutions once preferred by Republicans. And to some extent, that’s true. But there are a number of Easter eggs in here, policy ideas that originated with liberal policy groups. The White House may be touting the bipartisan bona [...]

Yesterday, David Axelrod seemed to suggest that the White House would shut down all their stimulus efforts once the unemployment extension bill passed. But the Wall Street Journal noticed that they’re still trying to extend one other program: the hiring tax credit for businesses. The Obama administration, stymied by a deficit-wary Congress reluctant to replenish [...]

By a 68-29 vote, the Senate gave final approval to the HIRE Act, an $18 billion dollar measure that also includes $20 billion dollars of replenishing for the highway trust fund, the money for which is recovered through an accounting maneuver. So call it a $38 billion dollar jobs bill, fully paid for with offsets [...]

Don’t look now, bit we’re about to get final passage on a modest-sized bill. In the United States Congress. In 2010. Crazy, right? The Senate achieved cloture yesterday on their now-$38 billion dollar micro-jobs bill. You’ll remember that this started out as a $15 billion dollar bill with four components: a job creation tax credit, [...]

The Senate will resume consideration of a $148 billion dollar tax extender bill which would also extend unemployment benefits and the 65% COBRA subsidy until the end of the year. The unemployment extension costs less than half of the total bill at $66 billion, with the rest going to tax breaks that expired at the [...]

The House of Representatives passed a $15 billion dollar jobs bill which the House passed last week, but not before including an amendment sought by Blue Dogs to comply with paygo rules. The vote was 217-201. The major components of the bill include a job creation tax credit, $2 billion for Build America Bonds, a [...]

The Senate just passed its $15 billion dollar jobs bill by a count of 70-28 (roll call will be here eventually), getting some Republicans to break its way after the cloture vote passed. $15 billion is actually a misleading number – the extension of the Highway Trust Fund would add $20 billion for infrastructure projects, [...]

I don’t know if I would use as bitchy a headline as the Washington Post did on this, but the Administration coming out with a series of job creation measures now does reflect how the Recovery Act was misinterpreted. Many of its measures had to do with economic growth and simply stabilizing an economy spiraling [...]