Scott Brown: I'll vote for jobs bill again 'with minor tweaks'

Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) suggested he'll vote for the version of the $15 billion job-creation bill that the House tweaked at sent back to the Senate on Thursday.

Brown said he hasn't seen how the House changed the bill, which features a tax credit for small businesses who hire new workers, but that he would be open to backing it.

"If it's the same, I'll vote for it again with minor tweaks," Brown (D-Mass.) told The Hill. "If minor tweaks mean several billion dollars, then no."

Brown and a handful of other Republican centrists joined with Democrats to overcome the opposition of Senate GOP leaders to the $15 billion measure. Conservatives criticized the newest senator for siding with Democrats after they helped him win a special election to succeed the late Sen. Edward Kennedy (D).

The jobs bill includes $13 billion for the hiring tax credit and lesser amounts for new federal bonds for state and local infrastructure projects, an extension of the highway trust fund for transportation projects and a tax provision allowing businesses to write-off losses due to depreciating equipment.

The House amendments don't radically change the bill or add to its cost.

The House included in the bill an extension of a corporate interest tax set to expire in 2019 by one year. The move will fully offset the measure's cost. Fiscally conservative Blue Dog House Democrats had complained that the Senate version failed to find specific ways to pay for the measure. 

The House also included a provision requiring that a certain amount of highway trust fund projects go to businesses owned by "socially and economically disadvantaged individuals." Liberal House members worried that the measure wouldn't do much to address an unemployment rate at 9.7 percent nationally and higher in urban and poorer areas.

Because of the changes the House made to the $15 billion bill, the measure goes back to the Senate. But because the changes are relatively small, the bill is likely to retain the support of centrist Republican senators who voted for the original measure last week.