The act was put into place under Gov. Matt Blunt to provide tax credits to large employers who come into an area with jobs paying above the county median and which provide at least 50 percent of the cost of health insurance for their employees. The program has already been expanded once.

Asked what impact he expects from the deep recession being predicted by many economists because of investment losses and bank failures, Hulshof said the state will not be hurt as bad as states where bad real estate loans are a much bigger problem.

Hulshof, a Republican, faces Attorney General Jay Nixon in the Nov. 4 race for governor. Hulshof voted twice against the $700 billion financial markets bailout bill.

In an interview with the Southeast Missourian, he said he sees a downturn coming. "I see an impact. We have already started to see, as we are running into this headwind, our unemployment numbers go up. If you look at the numbers over the last year, we are at a net job loss. If you look at it over the last four years, we are a net positive of 60,000 jobs. But that doesn't mollify any person who just lost their job in the state of Missouri. They don't care about numbers.

"The point is we don't have the whole subprime, the house of cards that you saw in other parts of the country. So we are not going to be as dramatically affected as some of those other areas are."

The key, Hulshof said, will be to act quickly to show the state is ready to help businesses weather the coming storm.

"The Quality Jobs Act right now, which was already been enacted by the legislature, which puts a cap on the credits that may be used, is only for large businesses. What we want to do in the short term, and we can do this with an emergency clause, so it could be effective Feb. 1 if we could get this done, would be to allow smaller businesses, maybe those that are five or larger or 10 or larger, who have added people at their work site, would be eligible for this credit.

"We have to take the cap off and we have to make it so that small businesses would have that available to them. I think that is a way to provide an impetus in the short term.

At the same time, Hulshof said, the state must not back away from the changes in workers compensation laws, lawsuit limits and medical malpractice limits that he said have made the state a more attractive place to do business.