EDITORIAL: A glimmer of bipartisanship on jobs bill

A tiny bit of bipartisanship has appeared in the least likely place: The United States Senate. Five Republicans braved the partisan divide Monday and voted with Democrats to prevent a filibuster of a jobs bill. With one in 10 American workers unemployed, that's a very good thing.

But the heart of the $15-billion bill is a business tax break, usually an easy sell with Republicans. Even though other tax breaks were stripped out, the fact that it attracted only five GOP votes shows how elusive cooperation will be on tougher issues.

Among those who crossed the aisle was Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.), who shook Democrats in January when he won the late Sen. Edward Kennedy's seat. While lauded by some, his vote to advance the bill unleashed a torrent of criticism online, where he was called "Benedict Brown" and worse.

The bill's approach to job creation is simple: A company that hires a person out of work for at least 60 days wouldn't have to pay the employers' share of the Social Security tax for that worker in 2010. Employers would also get a $1,000 tax credit for each new hire kept on the payroll for at least a year. It should nudge companies to hire sooner rather than later.

The Senate still needs to find the votes for a significant extension of unemployment compensation for the 1.2 million people whose benefits will end Sunday, and to extend the COBRA subsidy to help the jobless buy health insurance. But these days, even a small flicker of bipartisanship is progress. hN