Congress is set to vote on President Obama’s Jobs Act today, and the ramifications could be major. Yesterday, the president criticized the “do-nothing” Congress for wasting taxpayers’ time and money on debating over a commemorative coin for baseball and reaffirming “in God we trust” as the national motto, rather than focusing on the more pressing issue of job creation. He urged Congress to “get moving and put America back to work.” The $60 billion package in the Jobs Act would create 150,000 jobs and would be paid for by a 0.7 percent tax on all income over $1 million, which would affect only 0.2 percent of the US population in terms of income tax.

The Nation’s editor and publisher Katrina vanden Heuvel joined The Ed Show on MSNBC yesterday to talk about the impact of the president’s shift to focusing on job creation and how the Republican Congress is obstructing progress on the economy. Commending the president’s strong position on job creation, vanden Heuvel stresses the importance for President Obama to “stay on it with deeds and continuing to expose people like Boehner and what they stand for.”

—Jin Zhao