While the Senate jobs bill has been panned for being so scaled back when compared to the house jobs bill, it will still likely save a good number of jobs.  The bill can essentially be broken into four main subsections:

1) Exempting employers from a SS tax if they hire unemployed workers 2) Funding highway and transit programs, essentially more short term infrastructure development 3) Tax cuts for businesses spending on capital purchases and 4) Help for states to fund more infrastructure programs.

The 15 billion dollar bill is clearly more decentralized than the 114 billion dollar house bill, but according to Reid it will save up to 1 million jobs.  We believe that these estimates are over-inflated and the number is closer to 750,000 over the next 4-5 months.  This sounds somewhat minuscule but if you look at the massive impact stimulus spending had on our employment picture, you’d recognize that this is quite good.  Assuming this passes the Senate and then the house, we could be looking at unemployment rates that are a solid .5 percent higher than they should be.  The economic repercussions of .5 percent of the workforce going missing are staggering and reveal the necessity of passage for the jobs bill.  Thus, despite the calls from the right to have more tax cuts, and the calls from the left to have more infrastructure spending, this is a quite efficient use of 15 billion dollars: just think of it this way- the stimulus cost 52.5 times as much and will create just three and a half times as many jobs.  I’d call that a solid effort by an often gridlocked Senate.