As Democrats continue their efforts to shepherd portions of President Obama’s jobs bill piecemeal through the Senate, leading Democrats have expressed optimism that the President’s expanded hire-a-veteran tax credits will receive bipartisan support later this week.
This is according to an article published by The Hill on Friday afternoon. See “Senate Democrats try new tack on jobs, push bill without millionaire surtax.”
As proposed by the President, the new tax credits would be implemented through an expansion of the existing Work Opportunity Tax Credit (WOTC) program. WOTC is slated to expire on December 31 of this year. Passage of the President’s veteran’s tax credits proposal would therefore also necessitate renewing the WOTC program itself.
While I am aware of extensive lobbying efforts in support of extending WOTC, this is the most optimistic and timely expression on the subject I have heard to date. According to the article in The Hill:

“Democratic Sens. Patty Murray (Wash.), Debbie Stabenow (Mich.) and Jon Tester (Mont.) told reporters Friday that they were hopeful that Republicans would jump on board with the veterans’ legislation.”

“It’s expected to pass. It should pass, Stabenow said, saying the legislation is meant to ensure that veterans would not stand in the unemployment line.”

An important feature of the Senate Democrats’ strategy will be to attach the veteran’s bill to another bill already passed with broad bipartisan support in the House of Respresentatives.

The veterans’ legislation is also expected to be attached to a GOP priority — a House-passed measure that would repeal a yet-to-be-implemented requirement that federal, state and many local government agencies withhold 3 percent of certain payments to contractors.

For more, click through to read the entire article. It is short and to the point.