The possibility exists for the Senate to pass a bipartisan jobs bill. It just won’t do much to create jobs.
The Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl, typically a fountain of misinformation, gets this one right in Bloomberg: “Kyl … said Democrats shouldn’t advertise the package as jobs legislation because it’s just ‘extending a bunch of tax policy and related items that we need to do.'”
The Los Angeles Times explains in more detail: “…the cornerstone would be a proposal to give businesses that hire unemployed workers this year an exemption from the 6.2% Social Security payroll tax … Other provisions of the bill are, for the most part, expansions or extensions of existing policies.”
This is certainly better than nothing. But it can’t be sold as anything close to real solution to the jobs crisis, lest you want to set the public up to be deeply disappointed.
The jobs tax credit idea has some potential, but not on it’s own. As my OurFuture.org Isaiah Poole noted yesterday, what is preventing businesses from hiring is