The Senate’s bipartisan jobs bill…

This is probably why it is bipartisan (New York Times):

The jobs bill emerging in the Senate is pathetic, both as a response to joblessness and as an example of legislation deemed capable of winning bipartisan support.

After reading Don Peck’s truly depressing article in the Atlantic about how a new jobless era will be particularly devastating for those in my generation, who Peck says are ill-equipped in temperament and in job skills to deal with the years to come, I think we absolutely need a jobs bill that invests in me and my peers. Although I think that contrary to what Peck says in the article, my peers are in fact going to be able to deal with the road ahead, he is right that this recession has hit our group especially hard, as evidenced by the many people I know who have been unemployed for not insignificant periods.

Franklin Roosevelt often said in the early 1930s, when describing his forthcoming New Deal policies, that unemployment sapped the human spirit. Now, while I wouldn’t mind a little more vacation time, FDR was right that the infinite time without direction or money that is unemployment, is dis-spiriting. He also favored spending stimulus money on creating jobs rather than extending unemployment benefits (the latter is what the current Senate job bill proposes), because he said creating jobs for people was better for their spirits than was keeping them on the dole (However, he was not, unlike Republicans of late and New Democrats, a man who busied himself with vilifying people on welfare).

The problem with the current Senate job proposals is that it does not empower people who want to work, but instead focuses on providing tax credits and tax breaks. The problem is, these measures will barely make a dent, as the NYT says:

An even bigger problem is that the hiring credit is unlikely to work as intended unless it’s paired with other federal support to generate and maintain consumer demand — mainly extended unemployment benefits and more fiscal aid to states. No matter what Congress does to lower the cost of labor, employers won’t hire unless they believe demand will be sufficient to sell whatever the business produces.

So why isn’t our jobs plan focused on employing people who want to work? Why is it targeted mainly at incentivizing small businesses with tax credits that may not even give them enough money to hire people? And why is Max Baucus chairing this thing???