Quantity Is Job One

The House plans to have a jobs bill on the table before the end of the year.

Top lawmakers are looking at a variety of options, including road construction, tax breaks and assistance to hard-pressed state governments which could create jobs but also worsen budget deficits in the short term, said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer.
"We're moving ahead at a pace that hopefully will allow us to do something in the next three weeks," the Maryland Democrat said at a news conference.

Some of these programs could be funded by a transaction tax on Wall Street, or money left over from the financial-industry rescue package, said the House's No. 4 Democrat, Representative John Larson.

Democrats are under pressure to bring down the 10.2 percent unemployment rate, at the highest level since 1983, before the November 2010 elections. Unemployment is expected to remain high into next year even as the economy picks up, a factor that economists say could threaten the fragile recovery.

Any jobs bill would be better than nothing, and it would be difficult for the Republicans to oppose it going into an election year to boot.  The Dems are going to need to do something.

Of course it would be far better if the root of the problem was addressed and a raft of job and wage protection measures were passed, but that won't happen. Republicans don't like it when working class Americans benefit, it makes them vote Democratic.