House Dem implores Senate to 'get off its duff' and pass jobs bill

Virginia Rep. Tom Perriello (D) on Monday implored the Senate to "get off its duff" and pass a jobs bill in order to help "families out there who are struggling."

The congressman stressed lawmakers had to adopt a "wartime mentality" with respect to job creation this year, and he urged them to consider funneling most repaid bank bailout money to taxpayers who are still without work.

"I think a lot of people across the aisle are waking up to how much of a crisis this job situation is," Perriello, a vulnerable House Democrat entering the 2010 election, told ABC's "Top Line."

"I think we need to take back that bailout money, put it into a jobs bill," he added. "We need the Senate to get off its duff and begin moving on jobs."

Behind Perriello's appeal for a jobs bill are last week's new jobless numbers for the month of January. While unemployment fell slightly from December, dipping from 10 percent to 9.7 percent, the number arrives amid news that the economy still shed 20,000 jobs over the past 30 days.

The new jobless totals in part prompted President Barack Obama last week to propose a host of new programs that could encourage companies to hire unemployed workers or expand paychecks for those they already employ.

Those measures, along with a slew of programs for small businesses, are likely to be part of the Senate's forthcoming jobs package, which Democratic leaders promised to unveil on Monday.

But Senate Democrats missed that self-imposed deadline, mostly because of a snowstorm that buried most of Washington over the weekend. Votes in the upper chamber were suspended on Monday, and it remains unclear whether more inclement weather later in the week will further postpone legislative action.

But Perriello nonetheless implored lawmakers to act promptly. His appeal to the Senate to "get off its duff" seemed to be a clear reference to the president State of the Union address last month, in which Obama called out the upper chamber for failing to pass a jobs bill more than a month after the House did.

"We need a wartime mentality in this jobs crisis," Perriello stressed, noting parts of his district suffered from unemployment as high as 20 percent. "We have families out there who are struggling; so many have lost their jobs ... millions more live in fear that tomorrow might be the day."

---