Perhaps the “last best hope of Democrats to pass legislation aimed at creating jobs before the November elections seemed to be crumbling in the Senate on Wednesday as Republicans signaled that they would block a bill to expand government lending programs and grant an array of tax breaks to small businesses,” according to the New York Times.
In a bid to save the bill, Democrats released a new version of it on Wednesday night without a $30 billion lending program. But Mr. Reid immediately introduced an amendment that would restore the fund, and he continued to block any Republican amendments. Democratic aides said talks with the Republicans would continue, and they were still hopeful that some form of the measure would be approved.
More on the lending program opposed by some Republicans:
The main point of disagreement is the centerpiece of the legislation: a proposed $30 billion lending program that would make credit available to small businesses through local banks. Some Republicans have decried the proposal as a mini “bailout” and said they would vote against it.
The most prominent potential Republican supporter of the bill, Senator Olympia J. Snowe of Maine and the senior Republican on the small-business committee, said Wednesday that she firmly opposed the $30 billion program because it echoed the huge bailout of Wall Street, the Troubled Asset Relief Program, which has become a political liability for lawmakers who supported it even though many economists say it was a success.
“It has all the quality and features of the TARP program,” Ms. Snowe said in an interview outside the Senate chamber. “I think we’ve been down that road.”
With the lending program dropped from the bill, what would “be left is a package of slightly more than $12 billion in tax breaks for small businesses, including provisions that would allow quicker tax write-downs of capital expenditures, known as accelerated depreciation, as well as a break on capital gains taxes from the sale of certain small-business stock if the stock is held for more than five years.”
The bill would also expand several Small Business Administration loan programs, increasing loan limits and, in some cases, eliminating borrower fees. And it would allow small business to carry back general business tax credits to offset their tax bills from the previous five years.
The underlying bill being modified by the Senate is the Small Business Jobs and Credit Act (H.R. 5297).
(credit image – daylife/getty)
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