As the Senate again turns its attention to an economic stimulus package, the focus should remain on choosing the quickest, most effective financial boost. Because lawmakers have only one chance to get the contents and timing of a stimulus bill right, they should stick close to the Senate Finance Committee bill. Because it includes an extension of unemployment benefits and would give tax rebates to more low-income people, it is a better package than the one recently passed by the House of Representatives.

In addition to including low-income seniors and disabled people who would be left out of the House package and increasing the rebates to the lowest-income recipients, the Senate Finance Committee package would extend unemployment benefits by another 13 weeks for jobless Americans who continue to search for work. These are large improvements that would get more money, more quickly into the hands of people who will spend it, the key to any economic stimulus package.

Numerous economists and the Congressional Budget Office have ranked higher unemployment benefits as one of the two strongest economic stimulants. The other, increased food stamp benefits, is not included in either stimulus package.

Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody’s economy.com, calculated that extending unemployment benefits would generate $1.64 of additional economic activity for every dollar of cost.

“If the point of this stimulus package is to jump-start the economy, then addressing the key component of unemployment in America should be at the core of any legislation that passes Congress,” Sen. Olympia Snowe said Tuesday at a Finance Committee hearing.

She noted that the number of long-term unemployed people is now twice as high as it was before the last recession in 2001. Last week, the Labor Department reported that the economy lost 17,000 jobs in January, the first time in four years that employment has shrunk.

An added benefit is that additional unemployment funds could be sent out and spent more quickly than the tax rebates included in both the House and Senate bills. Additional unemployment benefits could begin to be sent out as quickly as 30 days after a bill is passed. Tax rebates would be based on 2007 tax filings and are not expected to start being mailed until mid-May, after the Internal Revenue Service has processed some of the 2007 returns.

The Finance Committee bill, which is also supported by Sen. Susan Collins, also includes rebates for Social Security income and disability benefit recipients who don’t have earnings and it provides larger rebates to low- to moderate-income families than the House bill.

It does not include state fiscal relief, a proven stimulus that is needed at a time when the federal government is cutting Medicaid and other funding to the states. Nor does it include additional money for heating assistance.

As lawmakers complete a stimulus package, they can’t lose sight of their goal – to give the national economy a needed boost. By including additional unemployment insurance, the Senate bill is more likely to do this.