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The state’s job-creation agency has an extra $8 million in refundable tax credits to award to companies this year under a request approved Monday by the Legislature’s budget committee.

The motion passed along party lines, 11-4, with one member absent. Democrats decried the move as a corporate giveaway that won’t help the state increase funding to public education and roads, while Republicans said it was necessary because Wisconsin is competing for companies with other states.

Rep. Gordon Hintz, D-Oshkosh, contrasted the state now giving out nearly half a billion dollars in tax credits a year through a 2011 manufacturing and agriculture tax credit with federal data showing the state ranked in the bottom third of states for job creation over the past five years.

“So far these investments have not paid off,” Hintz said. “It’s time to stop digging and setting up our state to fail.”

Rep. John Nygren, R-Marinette, co-chairman of the Joint Finance Committee, knocked the Democrats for voting against attempts to invest in job creation while criticizing Republicans for the state’s job performance.

“You can’t have it both ways,” Nygren said.