The universe of people calling for a “second stimulus” just a few months ago was incredibly small. But continued bad job numbers and the crossing of the magic 10% threshold on the unemployment rate has rapidly changed minds in Washington, although the terminology has change to a “jobs bill.” It’s actually looking more likely than not at this point.

The AFL-CIO’s jobs forum today was preceeded by Richard Trumka appearing in front of the House Democratic caucus last night. So we can reasonably expect Nancy Pelosi to adopt some of those ideas for her own jobs bill:

One way or another, aides say, House Democrats’ message from now to Christmas will be about jobs.

“We continue to look for opportunities to build on the recovery package and other actions Congress has taken to bolster the economy,” said Nadeam Elshami, spokesman for Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).

Leaders want members to have something to take home with them to show that they’re working on the economy. But they have to balance that against growing discomfort among voters about skyrocketing government spending.

As Trumka said in his forum today, “No one who’s door I ever knocked on, ever wanted to talk about the deficit.”

The vehicle for this public investment may be a stalled highway bill, which could create billions in new infrastructure spending. The sticking point has been finding funding for it, though today Rep. Peter DeFazio floated a proposal to fund it through a small tax on speculative crude oil transactions, which is frankly a brilliant idea that could reduce manipulation of the oil futures market while bringing in needed revenue and not impacting the heavy legitimate hedgers of crude, like airlines and railroads. What’s more, it’s directly tied to transportation infrastructure.

The Surface Transportation Authorization Act of 2009 requires $450 billion in funding over 6 years. Because of existing funding mechanisms through the Highway Trust Fund, there is a $140 billion funding gap. A transaction tax on crude oil securities would raise more than $190 billion over 6 years, more than enough to fill the gap.

If there’s one thing we can take away from the health care debate and really all the political debates this year, it’s that nobody will especially weep for the banks and the wealthy classes if they need to bear a bigger tax burden during this Great Recession. Polling shows massive support for taxing the rich to help pay for the health care bill, for example.

In the Senate, the most conservative member of the Democratic caucus, Nebraska’s Ben Nelson, expressed support for using the highway bill as a vehicle to job creation.

Indeed, the numbers are bad enough that Nelson says he is open to another round of spending — as long as it’s couched in the right language.

“Obviously, the unemployment figures are greater than anticipated [sic] and raise the question as to whether something should be done. If the decision is to do something, then of course the second question is: Do what? The transportation bill is going to be required in any event, so I would take a look at that,” he told reporters Monday night.

Nelson was referring to the annual appropriations bill for the Department of Transportation, which some Democrats want to use as a vehicle for more stimulus — although the word stimulus is being shunned. Democrats argued unsuccessfully last time around that the stimulus bill should be dubbed a recovery package. This time, they’re calling it a jobs bill.

(There’s also the question of how much of that transportation bill would go to building highways instead of moving toward more sustainable rapid-transit oriented smart growth.)

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer has also spoken favorably about extending unemployment and COBRA benefits, and the White House is engaging with the issue of jobs more insistently recently.

Nevertheless, the fight for a legitimate job-creating stimulus will not be easy. White House aides like Rahm Emanuel are still foregrounding deficit-reduction at a time when public investment remains a need. And Ben Bernanke seemed bloodless yesterday in predicting that job gains will be “modest” during recovery, as if there’s nothing to be done, ho hum, monetary policy or lending to small businesses can’t do much of anything to alleviate that.

Ultimately, the policy and political need to stem job loss could lead to additional don’t-call-it-a-stimulus stimulus. But what form that will take is unclear.