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Vice President Biden wrestling budget deal

John Dimsdale Jun 13, 2011
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Vice President Biden wrestling budget deal

John Dimsdale Jun 13, 2011
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Jeremy Hobson: President Obama heads to North Carolina today with a focus on job creation. He’ll tour a factory in Durham and meet with his jobs council. The leader of the council has just written an op-ed calling for improved worker training to get the jobs engine going again.

There’s another idea that’s floating around as well — a temporary employer tax break.

Here’s our Washington Bureau Chief John Dimsdale.


John Dimsdale: It’s an idea getting lukewarm support from the GOP, including Michael Boskin, a former economic adviser to President George Bush senior.

Michael Boskin: A payroll tax holiday is probably the best of any remaining stimulus. I would not oppose it. I don’t think it’s a high priority.

He says employers will hire only when they think the government has the deficit under control. William Dunkelberg is the chief economist at the National Federation of Independent Business. He says companies don’t want any more pump priming.

William Dunkelberg: If the government announces another big stimulus package, people will flee in terror. We don’t want the government managing an ever growing part of the economy. I don’t think we have faith that they can do it well.

But with the recovery faltering, both Boskin and Dunkelberg say spending reductions could be delayed for a year or two, if there’s an enforceable blueprint for real cuts down the road.

In Washington, I’m John Dimsdale for Marketplace.

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