When President Bush soon signs economic stimulus legislation totaling about $160 billion, he wants to be done with it.

It contains the elements that were Bush’s priority—tax rebates for individuals and tax incentives for business investment. He was able to get Democratic majorities in the House and Senate to limit additions.

They settled on inserting higher Social Security payments. In response to opposition by the White House and many Senate Republicans, they left out an extension of unemployment benefits.

That represented a victory for AARP and a loss for organized labor. But labor will try to stage a comeback in the sequel to the stimulus bill, which many Democrats insist should include a boost in unemployment payments.

It looks as if they will continue to face resistance from the White House. Edward Lazear, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, maintains that unemployment hasn’t reached a level that requires action.

“Extension of unemployment benefits has never occurred when the unemployment rate was below 5.7 percent,” he said at a briefing for White House reporters on Monday, February 11. “And usually, if you look at the historical record, it’s somewhat closer to 7 percent. So it would be unprecedented to extend unemployment benefits at a time when the unemployment rate is 4.9 percent.”

If Senate Republicans were brave enough on the first pass-through to oppose changing unemployment policy during an election year with a potential recession looming, it’s a good bet that they’ll keep hanging together.

But Democratic leaders like Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Massachusetts and chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, intend to put up a fight. He called the stimulus bill a down payment, not the final check, when it comes to government efforts to juice the economy.

“It’s clear the White House doesn’t begin to understand the anxiety that tens of millions of American families are suffering, and the stimulus bill … leaves too many of them out,” he said in a statement this week. “The best response by Congress … is to pass immediate additional targeted relief to those in need, with specific help for the unemployed and for families who can’t afford to heat their homes.”

Given the Democratic majorities’ strong inclination to advance employment legislation that expands worker rights and to promote bills that bolster the labor movement, it’s been fascinating to see them get stymied time and again.

We’ll have to see during the remaining months of the 110th Congress whether the trend continues. In the meantime, Democrats are hoping they can increase their numbers in the Senate and put a colleague in the White House. That is probably the surest way to achieve the outcome they seek on employment law.

Meanwhile, Bush and the Senate Republicans continue to be extraordinarily effective in winning the daily policy grind in the capital. Will they now be able to come up with an election narrative about workforce issues that voters embrace?