What can government do to crank up America's creaky job machine? We'll be arguing ferociously about that in coming months, and the answer, frankly, isn't clear. Diehard Keynesians insist that only more government spending and tax cuts will accelerate job growth. But many other economists fear that exploding federal debt"”incurred partly to pay for more spending and tax cuts"”could trigger a new crisis that would destroy jobs. (Click here to follow Robert Samuelson)

Almost everyone agrees that the outlook is bleak. Since the recession's start in December 2007, about 8 million payroll jobs have disappeared. More will go. With the labor force expanding by more than 1 million workers annually, economists Joseph Seneca and James Hughes of Rutgers estimate that...