Word: bille
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...bevy of supporters in Washington - on both sides of the political divide. Yet President Obama's proposal to give companies an Uncle Sam rebate for hiring workers has been anything but a slam dunk. The idea, which Obama proposed last year, was dropped from a House of Representatives jobs bill. A similar measure has been proposed but not yet passed in the Senate...
...issue, though, is how many companies would actually deserve the tax credit. Nearly 12 months after Congress passed the $787 billion stimulus bill, and in the wake of a homebuyer tax credit and Cash for Clunkers, economists and others are paying more attention to the collateral cost of stimulus. The question with this proposal is how many of the million companies that Obama predicts would be awarded a job-creation tax credit would have hired workers anyway...
...fact, Democrats in Washington and even within the Administration were at odds over dozens of provisions. As with health care, there are serious differences on financial reform between the House and the Senate, and the Democratic caucus within the Senate is again divided. And as the House bill got watered down a bit, some reformers saw Treasury's fingerprints. For example, Michael Greenberger, a policy adviser to Americans for Financial Reform, a coalition of union, consumer and environmental groups, says Treasury lobbied "vigorously" for loopholes exempting certain over-the-counter derivatives from new regulations, a key objective of centrist...
...bill the House passed in December closely tracks the Treasury proposals; Geithner's aides say they got at least 80% of what they wanted, including the stand-alone consumer agency, an easy-to-understand innovation for Americans who think mortgages and credit cards should be as safe as toasters. Many of the differences were technical or turf-based: how to structure the resolution authority and regulate systemic risks, a loophole exempting "industrial loan companies" from various regulations, more loopholes shielding community banks and auto dealers (known for their pull with local Congressmen) from the new consumer agency's direct oversight...
...This is not to say the White House wants an issue rather than a bill. It wants both, especially if health care dies and leaves Democrats short on achievements to brag about in 2010. It's simply decided that the most plausible path to a bill is to warn the public that the financial system is still a ticking bomb, and to try to make opposition to strong reform tantamount to support for the terrorists in fancy suits. The problem is that on an issue this complex, with so many contentious provisions and alternative proposals floating around, naysayers are always...