Robert Frank on jobs and the deficit

Robert Frank has a post over at the New York Times that puts the issue of jobs and the deficit in clear focus.  Speaking about the millions of Americans who are unemployed or under-employed, he says:

If the economy could generate jobs at the median wage for even half of these people, national income would grow by more than 10 times the total interest cost of the 2011 deficit (which was less than $40 billion). So anyone who says that reducing the deficit is more urgent than reducing unemployment is saying, in effect, that we should burn hundreds of billions of dollars worth of goods and services in a national bonfire.