After Tax Credit, Baltimore Company Has Yet To Hire New Employees

By Cathy Duchamp

The Obama Administration is deciding whether to extend tax breaks designed to make it cheaper for small businesses to hire new employees. Since the president unveiled his initial plan in Baltimore six months ago, the results have been mixed.

Chesapeake Machine Company owner Terry Sims gave President Obama a tour of his shop floor last January.

"Yeah, I gave him a really cool pair of blue safety goggles, he looked like Bono," he says.

A few weeks after removing those goggles, the Mr. Obama signed a job creation tax credit into law. It gives business owners a break on payroll taxes, and some cash back for each new employee hired. But Sims says that hasn’t been incentive enough for him to add new staffers to his payroll.

"It's only going to be when industry and manufacturing picks up," he says.

Sims says moreso than tax credits, the government should increase spending on infrastructure and renewable energy.

"The more the government and private industry is spending, that stuff has to get made," he says. "We make stuff and we would be hiring people."

The Treasury Department said last week it’s too early to tell whether job creation tax credits have had any effect.

The credits are set to expire at the end of the year.