One worker squats on a platform near the nose of a corporate jet from California, bolting in a windscreen. Two more sit inside the cabin of another company plane, installing window shades and touching up wall panels. Another is strapped into a harness on top of a wing, and others huddle underneath.

There's a bustle of activity inside Western Aircraft's five hangars on the south side of Gowen Field as technicians crouch, climb and clamber around four 20,000-40,000-pound corporate jets, all from California companies. Another plane is headed from Connecticut in the evening.

But company officials say there's potential for more business. They're lobbying for a change in state law they say would give some extra thrust to Western Aircraft. They want to give out-of-state owners of large, turbine-powered aircraft weighing more than 12,500 pounds rebates on the sales taxes they pay on parts installed on their planes in Idaho.

It might seem like the wrong time for a bill that could appear to be a giveaway to fat cat corporate executives, even while a wave of economic populism has many voters railing against government that only serves special interests.

But the bill has quietly won bipartisan backing in the Idaho Legislature, including a unanimous vote of approval by the House Revenue and Taxation Committee. Some lawmakers see it in straightforward terms - as a way to create jobs and to level the playing field for a home-grown Idaho business, whose competitors all enjoy the tax advantage in their home states.

"Whatever you can do to increase jobs," said House Minority Leader John Rusche, D-Lewiston. "It's not a case of 'divide the pie. ' It's a case of making the pie bigger. If we can increase revenues to the general fund, it will help all of us. It will help schools. Making the pie bigger is what's important. We're kind of all in the boat together. "