In a show of humility, Barack Obama dropped his bid for a $3,000 tax cut for businesses that hire new employees. Many critics saw it as a trickle down approach that immediately benefited those that did not necessarily need immediate help. Democratic leaders in Congress acted quickly to battle the President-elect and found it did not take that much to steer him back on course to focus the stimulus on workers, not companies.
From The Washington Post:
Congress is now taking their time to iron out the details, something they miraculously forgot to do with President Bush late last year. Why they so eagerly gave Bush and Paulson $700 billion was astonishing to watch. Perhaps now they've learned their lesson (probably not but here's to hoping) that the Legislative branch is equal to the Executive. Making sure this stimulus works is priority number one, but they should not wait much longer than a month to get it to him, because Americans need the help of their government ASAP.Obama suggested the $3,000-per-job credit last week as one of five individual and business tax incentives aimed at winning Republican support. He proposed $300 billion in tax relief in a bill that could reach $775 billion, and he resurrected the jobs-credit proposal from the campaign trail as one of his main provisions.
Republicans reacted favorably to the higher-than-expected ratio of tax breaks to spending for road projects, alternative energy production, health-care technology and unemployment benefits. But they offered mixed reviews of his specific tax proposals and floated their own, including cuts in corporate and capital gains taxes.
Stronger opposition came from Democrats, who dismissed the $3,000 credit to employers for every job created or saved as ripe for abuse and difficult to administer. When no champion for the proposal came forward, the president-elect decided to sideline the incentive.
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