Some good news on the jobs front recently. January unemployment decreased to 9.7 percent. New jobless claims fell last week. The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits is also down.

As the employment outlook slowly heals, Washington is poised to enact its third stimulus measure in three years. The efficacy of the legislation is in doubt. The first Bush stimulus of temporary tax rebates and government spending did not forestall the financial collapse and Great Recession. The second, trillion-dollar Obama stimulus of temporary tax rebates and massive government spending may have saved state and local government jobs, but it did so while doing next to nothing to promote private-sector job creation and adding massively to the debt. What makes us think the third stimulus, weighted heavily toward temporary small business tax credits, will be any different? Over to you, AP: