The following editorial appeared in Sunday's Washington Post: At last, some good news for job-seekers: According to the government, the unemployment rate fell last month from 10.2 percent to an even 10 percent. Accompanied by a small increase in average weekly hours worked and a small drop in workers seeking full-time work but forced to accept part-time jobs, the report suggests that the wave of job destruction may at last be cresting. Still, this is hardly cause for celebration or complacency: Most forecasts, including the authoritative estimates of the Federal Reserve, indicate that the jobless rate will remain uncomfortably near its current level through 2010. Speeding employment growth remains urgent. But how to do that? At his White House jobs summit Thursday, President Barack Obama emphasized business's role: 'Ultimately, true economic recovery is only going to come from the private sector,' he said. This was a shift in emphasis since February, when he announced a $787 billion stimulus bill by saying that 'at this particular moment, government must lead the way.' At last check, though, the White House was tacking back toward federal intervention: The president's spokesman, Robert Gibbs, said Friday that it was 'likely' that Obama would embrace House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's call for tapping the billions of dollars remaining in the Troubled Assets Relief Program. That would probably take a new law, since the TARP fund was earmarked only for financial sector relief. It would also contradict signals Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner sent only a few days ago; he wanted to reserve most of the $200 billion-plus for deficit reduction. While more spending on unemployment benefits and other direct forms of income maintenance might be in order, several popular job-creating ideas could do more harm than good. A tax credit for hiring, for example, would be easy to manipulate, which is one reason the president discarded it this year. Obama was on sounder footing when he reminded his audience of the private sector's role. This merely acknowledged reality: Since World War II, the private share of total employment has never fallen below 81 percent. Those recommending more government programs on top of what's already in place (the effects of which have still not entirely been felt) must recognize how massively government has already intervened. Analysts at J.P. Morgan Chase estimate that, between extra spending by Congress and liquidity supplied by the Federal Reserve, the government has pumped four times more stimulus into the economy over the past three years (as a share of gross domestic product) than it did in all nine post-1953 recessions combined. Even if this were not the case, the federal deficit, much of which is owed to foreign creditors, limits Obama's freedom to borrow and spend. In thinking about how government can best encourage private companies to restart their engines, Obama and Congress should consider the deterrent impact of their own policymaking. As medical device manufacturer Fred Lampropoulos told Obama at the jobs summit, it often seems that Washington has 'such an aggressive legislative agenda that business people don't really know what they ought to do.' Uncertainty itself may be retarding investment and job creation. The sooner the president and Congress make final decisions about health-care reform, cap-and-trade, financial regulatory reform and the rest of the issues before them, the sooner America can start getting back to business. 