Nelson votes against bill giving tax breaks to businesses

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The Senate has passed a bill aimed at boosting job growth by giving tax breaks to businesses that hire the unemployed. Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson voted against it.
“And while I support elements in the package, I voted against the bill. What I am hearing from Nebraskans is that we don’t need to spend more money right now. We need to give the stimulus bill we passed a year ago more time to work saving and creating jobs and providing tax relief.”
Senator Nelson says there is a boat load of stimulus money that hasn’t been used.
“Two-thirds of that stimulus package hasn’t been spent yet according to the government’s recovery.gov website. That means the 787-billion dollars, just 278-billion; it sounds funny to say just. That is a lot of money but it is just a little over a third because 278-billion dollars has been paid out across the country and that includes the bills major tax cuts for 95-percent of the families in America and tax relief for individuals and companies in Nebraska as well. We are a long way from feeling its full benefit.”
That same figure holds for Nebraska. 
“Of the 1.5-billion in stimulus funds allocated to Nebraska, 271-million has actually been paid out which leaves two-thirds yet to be spent.”
Senator Nelson says critics are still speaking out about how the stimulus bill isn’t working and jobs are not being saved or created. He disagrees.
“Now concerning the stimulus bill, I saw something interesting yesterday I would like to point out mainly because some critics have that it wouldn’t create many jobs and was a waste of money. The non-partisan congressional budget office, CBO, released an estimate that the stimulus bill created or saved 1-million to 2.1-million jobs nationwide by the end of last year.”
The job legislation also focuses on highway and transit projects that would create hundreds of thousands jobs in construction. The legislation would also assist states in helping offer subsidies for those who do energy improvements to their home.