President Obama spoke at SUNY Albany yesterday, sketching out an economic to-do list for Congress, and raised an important point that generally goes overlooked: when it comes to the recovery, "one of the biggest drags on our economy" has been public-sector layoffs.
"[A]fter there was a recession under Ronald Reagan, government employment went way up. It went up after the recessions under the first George Bush and the second George Bush. So each time there was a recession with a Republican President, we compensated by making sure that government didn't see a drastic reduction in employment.
"The only time government employment has gone down during a recession has been under me. So I make that point just so you don't buy into this whole bloated government argument that you hear."
It's maddening in large part because so much of the global economic crisis was hard to control, but this aspect -- public-sector employment -- was easy. It was within Washington's power to prevent the layoffs of teachers, firefighters, and police officers, and Democrats did that for a while in 2009, but as stimulus funds ran out, mass layoffs began. Republicans were given an opportunity to save these jobs, but they refused, arguing that the economy would improve if more public-sector workers were unemployed.
We're left to wonder what could have been, but we have some ideas. The Wall Street Journal ran an important piece the other day, noting that the national unemployment rate would be 7.1% right now -- a full point lower than it is now -- if the government hadn't laid off so many public-sector workers. TPM's Brian Beutler published this great chart this morning:
TPM
There's no great mystery here. The right doesn't like it, and Republicans prefer to pretend the facts are wrong, but there's one key difference between our weak economic recovery and a more robust one: our government is shrinking at the worst possible time.
The New York Times' Floyd Norris had this report earlier in the week (which was accompanied by some amazing charts).
For the first time in 40 years, the government sector of the American economy has shrunk during the first three years of a presidential administration.
Spending by the federal government, adjusted for inflation, has risen at a slow rate under President Obama. But that increase has been more than offset by a fall in spending by state and local governments, which have been squeezed by weak tax receipts.
In the first quarter of this year, the real gross domestic product for the government -- including state and local governments as well as federal -- was 2 percent lower than it was three years earlier, when Barack Obama took office in early 2009.
Republicans will scream until they're blue in the face that the problem with the economy is that the government is too big and it's getting bigger. Their detachment from reality is breathtaking -- the biggest drag on the economy over the last three years has been our shrinking government.
If the growth of America's public sector was in any way similar to that of the Reagan or Bush eras, we'd be looking at a healthy, robust economic recovery. But it's not. The shrinking public sector is a form of American austerity and it's holding us back. The economy under the Republican administrations benefited from a growing government, but it's advantage Obama does not have.
Mitt Romney, incidentally, is eager to exacerbate the problem, working from the assumption that even more layoffs will make the economy stronger.
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this is all part of the ECONOMIC TREASON of the GOP AGAINST THIS COUNTRY.
you think it's a COINCIDENCE that they did this'?
HELL NO.
IT was all ON PURPOSE.
to tank the economy and BLAME THE PRESIDENT.
ECONOMIC TREASON
plus it has the bonus effects of making state governments work worse and tossing union members
David Gregory asked that straight out to Vice President Biden on national media. He asked if Republicans were mounting a conspiracy. Mr. Biden said no, but what else could he say. If he had said yes it would've meant civil war. But the fact that such a question could be asked in major public media to a top elected official shows the idea is common in high circles.
DAVID GREGORY: Do you think that there is a modern, right-wing conspiracy that has aligned against this president?
Facts? W T F Steve? You know facts have no place in politics!
A smidgeon of history, if you will.
In Olden Times public sector jobs were controlled by big city "Bosses" (Tweed in New York, Pendergast in Kansas City, Daley in Chicago, for example) handed out the patronage jobs in exchange for cash.
But there was a weak link in the chain of corruption- elections. If your guy lost, then your job was once again for sale by the incoming administration.
There must be a better way. And the Republicans have found it. Eliminate those civil service (unionized) jobs and replace them with Privatization. That way your corporate buddies run their prisons, their water companies, their utilities, without fear of interruption by those sometimes messy "elections".
Yesterday Mitt the Liar gave a major address attacking the Administration for having grown government dramatically since taking office. The press reported the speech with its usual headnodding. What they failed to point out is that government spending has risen as a result of the great recession because so many people are on unemployment, welfare and medicaid. At the same time the economy and tax revenues shrunk. He hasn't grown the government. The government has just expanded its services in the face of a crisis, as it was designed to do.
Since most state governments have to run balanced budgets, they have been forced to down size because their tax revenues declined as the economy declined. Normally the United States government has stepped in to provide money to pay the salaries of state and local officials. Obama proposed advancing money to state and local governments as part of the simulus, but the Republicans blocked the proposal, deciding not to act this time because their first priority is to send Obama packing in 2012. Millions of state workers were sacrificed on Mitch McConnell's anti-Obama alter.
Do we really want to reward Mitch McConnell for putting their party ahead of the American people? What about Mitt the Liar? Do we really want to elect a President incapable of telling the truth?
And to make revenue collection even worse, many of the Republican controlled states cut their taxes in the face of falling revenues. Then, the sell the public on the idea of cutting benefits for civil service. Class warfare on a grand scale. Rather than cutting public sector workers' benefits, we should all be asking why Private sector employees have lost theirs and what can be done to restore them.
Fla. Gov. Scott declined a salary since he is rich. He is screwing the state for free and he says he likes his job. The GOP run state has given 1.7 billion to lure job creators with no oversight to calculate if any jobs have been created. Of course public services have been cut and fees for driver's licenses, car registration and professional licenses were doubled to offset these gifts to business.
I especially liked the part where he took 1.5 billion out of the school budget , then after the public outcry held a press conference saying I am giving the schools 1 billion dollars . What a nice guy I am .
Defines the monicker sleazy weasel
GOP = revisionist historians, deniers or reality, haters of women/minorities/gays and treasonous to working Americans!
VOTE them out in November 2012!!
I have a rumor from a good source that South Carolina will be laying off ALL social workers to turn SNAP et al over to private management and probably churches. Hope this is just a rumor, but doubt it, given the the treasonous Republican climate. They have six more months to destroy the economy. Republicans must be derailed.
They have already ended my career and millions of dedicated social workers like me.
...Wondering what the deficit would be, given the increased tax revenue at 7.1% unemployment vs. 8.1%...Ezra, could you get on that?