Owens seeks job growth in rural areas

WASHINGTON — Rep. William L. Owens's first piece of legislation is a bill to spur job growth in rural areas.

Mr. Owens, D-Plattsburgh, introduced a bill Tuesday to give companies a tax credit for jobs created in rural areas, which he said he may try to have incorporated into a broad jobs bill Democrats are pushing in Congress, if not passed on its own.

"We're going to take whatever path is open to us," Mr. Owens said Wednesday.

The legislation, called the Rural Jobs Tax Credit Act, would provide a tax credit to companies that expand their payrolls by an amount at least equal to inflation, by adding jobs in rural areas, which the bill defines as a community with fewer than 50,000 residents.

The credit would account for 15 percent of additions to payroll in 2010 and 10 percent in 2011, Mr. Owens's office reported. Companies would not have to be headquartered in a rural area.

Job creation tax credits have emerged in Congress, and from the Obama administration, as lawmakers look for ways to expand the slow economic recovery. While manufacturing and the nation's gross domestic product have picked up, job growth remains elusive. In the Senate, Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., has introduced legislation offering job creation tax credits, although without the rural tilt.

Critics, including some Democrats, have said they doubt companies will hire many workers just because of tax credits. The administration's plan to offer a $5,000 tax credit per newly hired employee took a beating Wednesday in the House Ways and Means Committee — the same panel that would consider Mr. Owens's bill.

But they are a bipartisan feature in politics; newly elected Republican Virginia Gov. Robert F. McDonnell, for instance, touted job creation tax credits in rural, economically distressed areas as a key proposal in his successful campaign last fall, and some other states offer them as well.

Mr. Owens called his rural tax credit proposal "long overdue for this area" and said he is lining up cosponsors, including possibly his upstate congressional colleagues.

The entire north country would qualify for the tax credit, Mr. Owens said. He said he would be especially attentive to keeping the rural focus, and definition, in place so the benefit can reach all of the north country.

Mr. Owens said he has not spoken with Ways and Means Committee Chairman Rep. Charles B. Rangel, D-Manhattan, but expects to do so.

The House narrowly passed a jobs bill last year, and the Senate is crafting its version this week. A final version likely would be decided by a House-Senate conference committee.