McIntyre Votes For Jobs

Press Release

U.S. Representative Mike McIntyre, who just hosted a Jobs Summit earlier this week, voted to help create jobs by using funds from Wall Street to help Main Street.

Congressman McIntyre stated, "My #1 focus is jobs, jobs, jobs! This bill will help families, individuals, and communities that are hurting during these tough economic times. Investing in small businesses, infrastructure, and education/training are the keys to getting our economy moving again."

On Monday of this week, McIntyre and Congressman Larry Kissell hosted a federal resources summit where citizens, community leaders and economic development leaders could meet with federal agencies to discuss grants and economic development opportunities.

Regarding the summit, McIntyre said, "I am thrilled with the turnout we had. It shows the deep desire and commitment that our community leaders, elected officials, Chamber of Commerce representatives and business leaders all have to creating a strong economic atmosphere for jobs and for infrastructure development to support those jobs."

The Jobs for Main Street Act will help in the following ways:

Highways, Transit and Other Infrastructure ($48 billion)

The bill invests $48 billion to help put people back to work rebuilding our crumbling roads and bridges, modernizing public buildings, and cleaning our air and water, including:

* Highways & Transit-- Invests more than $35 billion in highways and mass transit. Every $1 billion of federal investments in highways creates an estimated 27,800 jobs without the state match.
* School Renovation -- Spurs billions in immediate investment in school construction, rehabilitation and repair.
* Clean Water and Housing -- Provides $2 billion to help communities build facilities for clean and safe water and $2 billion to help communities build, preserve, and rehabilitate affordable rental homes for very low-income households and for repairs and rehabilitation of public housing.

Hiring of Teachers, Police, Firefighters & Job Training ($27 Billion)

* Education--Includes $23 billion to help States save or create an estimated 250,000 education jobs over the next two years with an Education Jobs Fund solely focused on paying salaries.
* Police & Firefighters -- Puts over 5,000 law enforcement officers on the beat and invests in hiring and retaining firefighters.
* Training -- Invests about $2 billion for other hiring and training programs, that will support 25,000 more Americorps volunteers and 250,000 youth summer jobs; expand college work study jobs for 250,000 students; and support job training for 150,000 people in high growth industries, such as health care and clean energy jobs, at community colleges.

Small Business

The package extends several Recovery Act initiatives to help America's small businesses create jobs:
* eliminating fees on Small Business Administration (SBA) loans to make them more affordable for small businesses, and
* encouraging banks to lend to small businesses by raising to 90 percent (from 85 percent) the portion of a loan that the Small Business Administration will guarantee.

Emergency Relief to Families Hit by the Recession

For those hardest hit by the Recession, the bill includes emergency relief ($79 billion) -- extending unemployment benefits and help with health benefits for those out of work. Not only does this help those families in need, but these provisions generate demand for goods and services in the economy as a whole.

* Unemployment Benefits -- Extends emergency unemployment benefits through June of 2010. The program expires at the end of the year and without an extension, roughly one million Americans will lose their emergency benefits in January 2010.

* Help with Health Insurance for Unemployed Workers (COBRA) -- Extends through June 30, 2010 a key provision to strengthen COBRA to help maintain health coverage during this downturn. (It makes these benefits available for people who were involuntarily separated from their jobs through June 30, 2010 and extends the months of help from 9 months to 15 months.) About 7 million people benefited from this provision in the Recovery Act and hundreds of thousands who got this subsidy when it was first made available in March are currently slated to roll off the program.

* Protecting Health Care Coverage for Millions through Medicaid (FMAP) -- Extends the provisions in the Recovery Act that provide the states with additional federal matching funds for Medicaid for six months -- from December 31, 2010 to June 30, 2011.

* Child Tax Credit -- Cuts taxes for 16 million families, by making the Child Tax Credit available to all low-income working families with children in 2010. (Under the Recovery Act, families must earn at least $3,000 in order to begin to take advantage of the $1,000 Child Tax Credit.)

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