"... then applied to software development in an effort to juice hiring."
How does it 'juice hiring' by removing the ability to deduct 100% of an employee's cost in one year? Who would be incentivized to hire more people when less is deductible?
Apologies, I was speaking to the more general idea of allowing firms to depreciate/amortize assets faster to juice hiring. In this case, the government ended the accelerated amortization for R&D which had been juicing the hiring for many years. This happens on the “regular” capital expenditures side rather frequently with windows of accelerated depreciation to increase the purchase of machinery. It’s always for a window of time, then it expires.
You interpreted opposite of what he said. The original exception allowing for 100% of R&D expenses to be deducted in the 1st year was the juice. The issue at hand is this exception being reversed.