Poll: Respondents divided over White House plan to increase hiring of veterans

The poll shows that 75 percent of likely voters say it is at least somewhat important for the government to launch a new program designed to create jobs, including 57 percent who say it’s “very important.”

Only 20 percent think it’s “not very” or “not at all important” for the government to start a program aimed at job creation. 

Still, 64 percent say decisions made by U.S. business leaders to help their own companies grow will do more to create jobs than decisions made by the government. Only 27 percent think decisions made by government officials will create more jobs, the Rasmussen poll showed. 

Obama, who announced the plan for veterans on Friday, is proposing a “Returning Heroes” tax credit for businesses hiring veterans who have been unemployed for at least a month, to run through 2012 and 2013. The $2,400 credit would increase to $4,800 for those hiring a veteran who has been unemployed six months or longer.

The proposal also includes a two-year extension of the “Wounded Warriors” tax credit, which gives companies that hire veterans with service-related disabilities a $4,800 credit. If the veteran has been unemployed for six months or more, the credit increases to $9,600.

Under the 2009 economic stimulus, employers who hired certain unemployed veterans were eligible for a tax credit of up to $2,400. This credit expired at the end of 2010.

The president is pressing the private sector to create at least 100,000 jobs for veterans through 2013 to help lower the persistently high unemployment rate, which stood at 13.3 percent as of June. 

The White House estimates the cost of the tax-credit program at $120 million over two years, depending on how many employers hire veterans.

About 1 million veterans are unemployed, according to the administration, including 260,000 former service members who joined the military after the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001.