Jobs.
Words.
"The $154 billion jobs bill passed by the House last week will allow the 217 Democrats who voted for it to tell their constituents that they care about unemployment. But it’s unlikely to do much else. The Senate will not address the issue until next year. By then, midterm election politics will be coming into full swing, with Democrats calling for more jobs and Republicans fanning voter fears about deficits.
The real challenge — for President Obama and for Congressional Democrats — is to not get bogged down in that debate but rather to make job creation the undisputed priority for 2010.
Right now, finding people work is a more urgent task than reducing the deficit.
...Perhaps most important, without a revival in hiring, the economy itself — which appears to be recovering — could regress. A second contraction could be worse than the first, bringing a downward spiral of falling wages, falling prices and even higher unemployment. With interest rates at rock bottom and other market interventions already deployed, policy makers would have few weapons left.
...Focusing on job creation does not mean playing down the deficit. President Obama must assure the nation — and its foreign lenders — that major legislative initiatives like health care reform will be credibly paid for and that Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy will not be extended beyond their scheduled expiration in 2010. And at some point, he will have to ask for new taxes and more spending restraint. But, for the moment, jobs come first."
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