This vote was on passing a bill intended to spur job creation as well as take care of several laws that would otherwise expire at the end of the month. The bill would provide payroll tax relief for businesses that hire new employees and extend deductions for small businesses’ investments. It also would extend for a year the authorization for the Department of Transportation to spend money out of the Highway Trust Fund, the fund where gas tax revenue is deposited, and which fuels most federal spending on surface transportation priorities. It also would permanently extend the authorization for a program known as Build America Bonds, which allows states to let large-scale infrastructure bonds, backed by a federal subsidy.

Democrats had been ready to move a much larger “jobs” bill, including more actual dollar spending on various programs, similar to what Congress enacted in the last stimulus bill. But after Scott Brown was elected and Democrats lost their supermajority in the Senate, which had theoretically allowed them to overcome filibusters, they were forced to scale back their jobs agenda from $85 billion worth of spending to about $13 billion.

Republicans were upset that the bill did not include extensions for a raft of expiring tax breaks, and also complained that the bill was not put together in a bipartisan manner. And Judd Gregg, R-N.H., attempted to defeat the measure with a parliamentary maneuver that ultimately failed (see vote 24).

By a vote of 70-28, the Senate passed the bill. All but one Democrat present voted for the bill. Of Republicans present, 13 voted for the bill and 27 voted against it. The end result is that the Senate passed a bill that is intended to spur job creation by extending certain tax breaks to small businesses for new hiring, ensuring the continuation of federal surface transportation spending and other items.