The Hill reports some second-hand information that Harry Reid will move forward with a “jobs bill” early next year:

Senate Democrats will take up a new job-creation bill in the wake of the 10.2 percent unemployment rate, Majority Leader Harry Reid told his colleagues Tuesday.

Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) told The Hill that Reid (D-Nev.) made the announcement about a new jobs bill at the Senate Democrats’ weekly lunch.

Reid said he was looking at an initiative focused on job creation “and that our caucus will take it up,” Cardin said.

Reid didn’t specify what would be in the bill, but he said that it was going to be “one of the priorities” for the Senate, Cardin added.

Reid’s office did not comment on the report. I’m seeking additional comment now.

Obviously, the high unemployment rate and the likelihood that such joblessness will continue despite economic recovery necessitates something like a “jobs bill.” The only question is what such a jobs bill would look like. So far the Obama Administration has resisted make-work types of jobs, such as hiring directly from the federal government. All of the job-creating measures have been indirect.

Instead Obama’s team has taken a more indirect approach, a prudence that critics on the left say is misplaced. If you’re spending hundreds of billions of dollars on stimulus, why not do it with conviction? Engaging in more forthright job creation could invite some political pitfalls (such as those constant accusations of socialism), but is double-digit unemployment any less a political risk?

The administration is “scared of [any plans] seeming like old-fashioned make-work, but that’s what it is: You’re giving [people] jobs because they have nothing left to do,” said Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a left-leaning think thank. “Giving people a shot at a job has to be worth a little bad publicity . . . but as in a lot of areas, they proved more cautious.”

There are ways to promote indirect job creation that could work – incentives for painting every roof in America white, which would actually lower energy bills and carbon dioxide emissions, springs immediately to mind. But the stimulus package and other job initiatives seem to be focused on increasing productivity rather than increasing employment, laying a foundation for future growth but providing little help to those struggling in the near term. That’s why a lot of the stimulus outlays are going into research rather than labor-intensive programs.

There’s no question that the public investment which would match need to employment is in the area of infrastructure.

Others question the claim that more infrastructure spending would have been too slow. U.S. Steel chief executive John Surma noted recently that China is rapidly spending $586 billion on its own stimulus, much of it for big public works projects. The United States has plenty of infrastructure demands and should be able to get such projects going quickly, he said, and the inability to do so is an “indictment” of America’s lack of a strategy for public investment.

These infrastructure projects can be seen at the level of building bridges or replacing water mains, but even at a smaller level, paying people to board up vacant houses or paint public buildings or staff up public centers. That’s infrastructure too, even if it’s not made from steel. People pick up skills they can use in their careers and see tangibly the results of public investment in jobs.

The problem is that all of this costs money. And the same Democrats who say that the Administration must trim its sails and focus on a “jobs agenda” are the ones who would shrink from actual public investment in the economy to create those jobs. We’ve all seen how deficit mania has taken hold among the political class.

They should come to their senses and go in the direction that Majority Leader Reid appeared to be leading yesterday.

UPDATE: Responding to the report, Sen. Reid’s office, through a Senate leadership aide, would not commit to moving any bill by the end of the year. “We’ve got a packed schedule for the rest of the year so we’ll have to see.”