The American Jobs Act, the new jobs bill President Barack Obama has unveiled to the United States, has people buzzing.

On Thursday, Obama spoke in front of a joint meeting of the Senate and House of Representatives to unveil his new jobs bill, the American Jobs Act. The new bill is a mixture of new infrastructure spending and tax cuts for small businesses that are meant to jolt the economy and put many Americans back to work.

However, despite Obama’s insistence that the bill is bipartisan and should be passed immediately, many around the country are still mulling the bill and are hesitant to embrace many aspects of it. In Ames, small business owners and ISU professors alike continue to talk about the bill’s potential to jumpstart job and economic growth in the city and for ISU graduates. The responses have been mixed.

“The uncertain economic climate is what is holding back small businesses,” said David Swenson, ISU associate scientist in agriculture and life sciences. “A broader expansion of business is what has to happen.”

One of the main provisions in the tax-cutting portion of the bill includes a 50 percent payroll tax cut for 98 percent of businesses as well as a complete payroll tax holiday for businesses adding new workers or increasing wages for current employees. This means that businesses will not have to pay payroll taxes for adding new workers or increasing wages on the first $50 million worth of payroll increases. The effort is meant to give businesses an incentive to hire more workers, but will this cause businesses in Ames to expand their employment?

“Not likely,” Swenson said. “The incentives in the American Jobs Act help businesses reduce payroll costs but does not translate into an expansion in employment. A New York Times poll said that small businesses are not optimistic because regional and global demand is what scares small businesses the most.”

The same sentiment was echoed by small business owners in Ames.

“What concerns me is that [the economy] is not sustainable for instant results,” said Kevin Kinzler, owner of Kinzler Constructions in Ames. “We have no idea what this country is going to look like a year from now, and if you have a company that is uncertain, they are not going to put the money into hiring.”

Kinzler, whose company has been in business since 1984 and employs more than 125 workers including 80 in Ames alone, continued to stress that the main factors holding him and other businesses back from growing and hiring were universal uncertainties in the economic climate as well as a lack of coherent federal policies that could be relied upon to be in place even a year or two from now.

Mike Coon, a vice president at PowerFilm Solar in Ames, displayed a similar view to Kinzler.

“For policies to change every year or two is not conducive to supporting a company’s long-term economic and job growth,” Coon said. “As for nearly all companies, continued customer confidence in the economy and government policy predictability are important items for continuing our company and employment growth.”

So what does this mean for ISU students upon graduation? Many wonder, given the state of the economy and a currently poor jobs outlook in many sectors, if college students will be able to find jobs upon graduation. However, there has been a level of optimism in our generation’s ability to adapt to the changes ahead.

“Obviously it is not the dot com days anymore. New college grads are having to be very resourceful,” Coon said. “But there are opportunities in America for jobs. Now it’s all about getting through this period and to be in a good position when the economy starts to take off again. The good news is that today’s college grads have the potential to be on the front end of the next upswing of our economy. That’s a good place to be.”

PowerFilm, Inc. (formerly Iowa Thin Film Technologies) was founded in 1988 by Dr. Frank Jeffrey and Dr. Derrick Grimmer. Coon started working at PowerFilm Solar in 2001. At that time, the company employed only 12 workers. Today, the company employs 95 workers and is a perfect example of the diligence and drive that is American entrepreneurship. And it is this American entrepreneurship that employs more than 50 percent of the American workforce.

Back to Washington, it seems very unlikely that the entire American Jobs Act will be passed in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, so it is hard to say what version, if any, of the bill will emerge. Upon saying that, regardless of what Washington does, there is a general consensus that the economy will eventually improve and employment will increase, from Washington to Iowa to California.

“I am very confident that the economy will recover within three years,” Kinzler said. “We are very busy, and people do want to do things … There is an entrepreneurial spirit in America that will fight through this thing.”