Senate Democrats Unveil Jobs Package with Tax Breaks to Entice GOP

According to the Boston Globe, Democratic leaders in the Senate are hoping to round up support from Republican Senators for their job bill by including a series of tax breaks. Congress is hoping to get a final bill to the President’s desk before Congress breaks for the holiday weekend. However, since the 350+ page bill has not been officially released, many conservative Senators are waiting to announce their support for the legislation.

The draft has very few new ideas for creating jobs, other than a $10 billion plan to exempt companies from paying their share of Social Security payroll taxes for new hires who had been unemployed for at least 60 days this year.

The idea, by Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York, and Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah, is regarded as more workable than Obama’s plan for tax credits of up to $5,000 for new hires because it is simpler and gets the tax breaks to businesses faster.

The rest of the measure contains mostly last year’s unfinished business, including renewal of business tax breaks that have expired, an extension of unemployment benefits and health insurance subsidies, and a delay in a cut in Medicare payments for doctors.