Budget proposal shows Obama is still fighting for it, despite lack of interest in Congress

During the 2012 presidential campaign, President Barack Obama promised to "create a new tax credit for companies that bring jobs home."

He has proposed this idea before -- to no effect in Congress -- most recently in a speech on overhauling the tax code in Chattanooga on July 30, 2013. But he's not giving up the ghost yet.

With the March 4, 2014, release of Obama's fiscal year 2015 budget proposal, the idea is officially back.

In its budget document, the administration proposes "tax incentives for locating jobs and business activity in the United States." These tax incentives, combined with the end of "tax deductions for shipping jobs overseas" (a promise we are rating separately) would, on balance, cost $212 million over 10 years, according to the administration.

Congress has shown no inclination to cooperate with Obama on this effort, and the one broad tax overhaul plan to emerge in Congress -- released in February 2014 by House Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp, R-Mich. -- focuses its efforts on eliminating exemptions and incentives for businesses, which is pretty much the opposite approach. (Camp's proposal is also widely expected to be going nowhere in an election year.)

We don't expect Obama's tax credit proposal to become law in 2014, if ever, but its inclusion in the fiscal 2015 budget makes clear that the president is still fighting for it. So we rate it In the Works.