It's reassuring to hear the majority of business representatives quoted, say the same thing I and others have been saying here; that they are NOT going to hire additional people until their business can justify it, tax credit or not.
Could the $5k tax sway a business to hire employee(s) if they were already in that decision making process? Sure.
The question is: How many businesses are in that position? Those businesses that are in that decision making process already were probably at somewhere around a 50/50 probability of hiring the employee(s) without the $5k tax credit anyway.
I think the real financial impact of this deal is extremely marginal. It smells like a typical government ploy to make them look like they're helping the economy so they can say, "Look what we did" and throw around some absurd numbers that no one could ever verify. And I do NOT say this as a slam on the Obama administration in particular, it is a well known and well used CYA with Smoke & Mirrors tactic by both parties.
Dr. Cynical Fishfinder