Next Monday, the Senate will hold a cloture vote on whether to allow debate to proceed on the Reid substitute for the so-called "jobs" legislation. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) decided to abandon a bipartisan "jobs" package negotiated by Senators Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa).
Instead, Reid has put forward a scaled back version that would:
- Extend highway program authorization through December 31, 2010 at current funding levels.
- Provide additional revenue to keep the Highway Trust Fund solvent through the first quarter of 2011.
- Restore highway spending authority that was cut on September 30, 2009, due to a budget rescission in SAFETEA-LU.
- Exempt workers hired in 2010 that have been unemployed for at least 60 days from Social Security payroll taxes.
- Allow public bodies to convert tax credit bonds to Build America Bonds.
- Extend 2008 and 2009 section 179 expensing thresholds so that taxpayers may elect to write-off up to $250,000 of certain capital expenditures in 2010 in lieu of depreciating those costs over time.
- Please vote for cloture to allow consideration of the "jobs" bill to proceed and vote in favor of final passage of the bill.
- Failure to approve this legislation by February 28 could result in our state losing millions in highway funding, undermine our state's ability to reimburse contractors for ongoing contracts, stall future contract lettings and undermine the outlook for reauthorization of the federal aid highway program.
- Build America Bonds have allowed states and local governments to pay for vital infrastructure like schools, water projects, port expansions and transportation projects that also create jobs.
- With the unemployment rate in the construction industry at nearly 25 percent, a disruption in highway and other infrastructure funding and will make this situation worse. This legislation is necessary to save construction jobs and will lead to more hiring.