By Larry Bivins

As the economy continues to sputter and Americans become increasingly disaffected with Washington, job creation has emerged as the top priority for members of Congress and President Barack Obama when they return to work after the Labor Day weekend.

Friday's bleak jobs report — no new jobs were added in August, and the national unemployment rate remained at 9.1 percent — adds a sense of urgency to Obama's address to a joint session of Congress Thursday in which he intends to outline his plan for putting Americans back to work.

Wisconsin lawmakers, particularly the Republican freshmen who campaigned on the dual theme of curbing government spending and creating jobs, are eager to hear the president's plan and have their own ideas about what it should include.

They also are in agreement on what the plan shouldn't include.

"What I don't want to see is massive dollars go out to 'shovel ready' projects," said Rep. Sean Duffy, R-Ashland, in a reference to Obama's 2009 economic stimulus plan. "We tried that."

Duffy said that while he supports investing in infrastructure, he believes a jobs plan has to be about more than just repairing or building new roads and bridges and schools.

What the former reality TV star and county prosecutor said he wants to hear in the president's speech is a "fundamental understanding that government doesn't create jobs; government creates the environment for job creation."

Obama is expected to outline a mix of job-stimulating initiatives, including spending for new construction projects and incentives to businesses to hire more workers. In addition, he's likely to call on Congress to extend payroll tax cuts and unemployment benefits.

Rep. Reid Ribble, R-Lawrence, hopes the president talks about reducing the burden of government regulations as he did during his State of the Union address. Ribble, who ran a roofing business before campaigning for Congress, recalled Obama said his administration would prioritize free trade agreements, reduce regulations and reform the tax code.

"If he comes through on those three policies, he'd have bipartisan support," Ribble said. "All we've seen so far on the regulation side is an increase."

Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Oshkosh, who ran a plastics manufacturing company before campaigning for the Senate, has been a frequent and outspoken critic of the Obama administration's policies that he says have stifled the potential for economic growth.

"In order to restore confidence needed to strengthen our economy, we should immediately repeal all of these harmful laws and regulations," Johnson said in a statement on Friday's jobs report. "I can't think of a better first step to begin the process of creating long-term, self-sustaining jobs in the private sector."

Johnson, for example, and four other members of the Wisconsin delegation wrote Lisa Jackson, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, in March asking for changes in proposed regulations governing industrial and commercial boilers. The letter said the EPA proposal would increase costs and "result in thousands of lost jobs in the Wisconsin pulp and paper industry."

Government regulations and the tax code typically have ranked high on the complaint list of small business owners in surveys, said Chad Stone, chief economist for the progressive Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. But the key impediment to job creation currently is weak sales.

"The problem is that with 9.1 percent unemployment there's not enough demand," Stone said. "You can get rid of all the regulations in the world, but if that doesn't increase demand, how's that going to help the economy?"

Stone said the continued high unemployment rate and lack of any net increase in jobs during August should be a wake-up call to policymakers whom he said have "focused far more attention on the budget deficit than the jobs deficit."

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