Congress balks at $3,000 tax credit per worker

During the final stages of the campaign, Barack Obama proposed a number of economic measures intended to jump-start a sputtering economy. Among those was a tax credit for businesses to hire new workers; Obama proposed a $3,000 credit for every worker hired.

"We've already lost three-quarters of a million jobs this year, and some experts say that unemployment may rise to 8 percent by the end of next year," Obama said at a rally in Toledo, Ohio, on Oct. 13, 2008. "We can't wait until then to start creating new jobs. That's why I'm proposing to give our businesses a new American jobs tax credit for each new employee they hire here in the United States over the next two years."

But Congress didn't like the idea when it came time to write a stimulus bill in January 2009.

"If you have a company and you're selling fewer shingles, $3,000 isn't going to get you to hire somebody when your sales are shrinking," said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., at a news conference on Jan. 14, 2009.

"So the basic view was, we need to do things to stimulate jobs on the tax cut side and on the business side, but that probably is not the best way to go. You don't get the most bang for the buck," he said, adding that the opposition was in the House and the Senate from both Democrats and Republicans.

When the House Appropriations Committee released its plans for the stimulus bill a few days later on Jan. 16, the measure was not included. So we rate this promise Stalled. (If nothing changes before passage of the final bill, we expect we'll be moving this to Promise Broken.)