The move in Congress to extend unemployment benefits last week is a tough call — sure, we don’t want to be heartless and leave people out in the cold, but we also don’t want to subsidize and encourage unemployment.

Democrats in Congress tried to paint Republicans as cold and heartless on the matter, but Republicans simply wanted the $30 billion price tag for the benefits to be cut from somewhere else in the federal budget, rather than adding it to the country’s whopping $1.4 trillion deficit.

In our view, unemployment has become the top political issue in the country: a tangible, unforgiving byproduct of the Great Recession.

Even after the $862 billion stimulus bill, the private sector has hemorrhaged more than 2 million jobs since February 2009, pushing the unemployment rate from 8.1 percent to 9.5 percent, according to the Wall Street Journal.

What’s worse is the official unemployment rate really doesn’t project the actual jobless picture. Those who quit looking for work are not included in the statistics, and unemployment rates are much higher in some parts of the country.

Consider close to home: Flathead County’s most recent unemployment rate was 11.4 percent, and the county has lost roughly 4,000 jobs since May 2009.

Those are some sobering numbers.

So what can be done, beyond extending unemployment benefits and increasing the federal deficit?

We’ve maintained the position that Washington should create some certainty and incentives for private investment and job creation, rather than piling on regulations, taxes and raising the specter of more of the same for the future.

As Rep. Denny Rehberg, R-Mont., said in a statement this week: “Unfortunately, Congress appears intent on killing job creation with a steady onslaught of new taxes, federal regulations and a fog of uncertainty that has paralyzed new hiring by small businesses. As I travel around the state, I hear time and again that Washington, D.C., is not only failing to encourage job growth, but it’s actually making things worse and delaying an economic recovery.”

And it appears things could get worse. The so-called Bush tax cuts are set to expire at the end of this year.

As the Wall Street Journal put it, an increase in capital gains taxes alone is expected to hit small businesses and startups the hardest because they need capital for growth.

It’s time to increase pressure on politicians to take the proper steps to save the nation’s economy from another wave of decline.