Unlike the federal response to every modern economic downturn, policymakers' response to the Great Recession has featured one idea that's been equal parts conservative and ridiculous: we've allowed the job market to deteriorate, on purpose, by allowing the public sector to shed hundreds of thousands of jobs.
As became clear on ABC's "This Week" yesterday, it's a detail Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) neither knows nor understands.
Hoping to challenge Paul Krugman, the Kentucky Republican asked incredulously, "Are you arguing that there are fewer government employees under Obama than they were under Bush?"
Told that the facts are incontrovertible, Paul responded, "No, the size of government is enormous under President Obama."
It's unsettling, to put it mildly, to see such conspicuous ignorance play out on national television. The truth really isn't that hard to understand -- state and local governments, strapped for cash, felt compelled to lay off legions of public-sector workers, including teachers, police officers, and firefighters. All told, since the economy bottomed out, America's private sector has added 4.6 million jobs, while the nation's public sector has shed 571,000 jobs. Since the start of the recession, we've lost more jobs in government than any other sector of the economy.
Democrats wanted to provide the funds necessary to save those jobs, but Republicans refused, arguing that the economy would improve when those 571,000 workers were unemployed. If public-sector job growth had only been allowed to continue to grow at the same rate as it did under the Reagan and Bush presidencies, unemployment would be significantly lower right now, but under President Obama, GOP lawmakers won't allow it.
Rand Paul could have at least tried to defend the underlying GOP argument, absurd though it may be, but instead he simply denied reality, pretending government employment has increased when it's actually seen a sharp decrease.
In other words, a Republican senator -- not some random talking head, but literally a sitting U.S. senator who's on Senate committees dealing with labor and small businesses -- doesn't have the foggiest idea what he's talking about. He's confused, not by complex economic theory, but by basic details that anyone with a passing familiarity with the economic debate recognized years ago.
So here are a couple of follow-up questions: (1) exactly what is it Rand Paul does with his time when he's supposed to be learning the basics of public policy? and (2) why is Rand Paul invited onto Sunday shows as if he has something worthwhile to contribute to the discourse?
Leave a Comment:
"but instead he simply denied reality"
That's simply the GOP mo for the past 12 years. Needs of the Party before the needs of the people.
Does anyone know the Federal Jobs statistics, without state and local?
All I could find is that while the country was loosing hundreds of thousands of jobs per month Federal jobs increased by 200k in the first two years of this administration.
Maybe that's what Rand Paul was referring to.
Of course Rand Paul was referring to federal employees. In 2002, we had about 1.9Million federal employees; in 2007 1.96Million; and 2012 2.2Million. Many were temporary workers (census workers, etc). Those stats don't include the hidden employees, contractors, who are currently at about 7.5Million. I personally don't care about this topic, and only looked into it out of concern that I was being misled by the author. I expect better from a blog with Rachel Maddow's name on it.
Of course Paul was referring to the increase in federal government growth in employment under BO which is what happens when the government keeps spending at 2008 levels. That's the problem on the federal level that there is no care about deficit spending by this administration and why Reid had no incentive of proposing a balanced budget. If Reid did put forth a budget to reconcile with Ryan's budget, then the final compromised budget spending would have been much less than the current spending based on the last budget passed in 2008. Only then would BO have had a chance to meet candidate BO's promise to halve the annual deficits. BO clearly made the political calculation to not put forth a budget so as to keep spending at pre-recession levels and leave the ever growing debt to the next admin. However BO did not foresee the voter backlash against his free wheeling spending with the shellacking that his party took in the mid-terms.
the states by law have to pass balanced budgets every year. Krugman was arguing for more federal money to go to the states to cover the states' deceits. That was essentially what the stimulus did and what the "jobs bill" is - a band aid and political favor by BO to the states pubic service unions. Just throwing federal money at the states to prevent state government layoffs for one year does not address the structural issues and over generous pension benefits increases which are unsustainable.
I don't have statistics, FromDownHere, but your "first two years" would certainly qualify as cherry-picking since it would necessarily include the constitutionally mandated census.
This is why Clint Eastwood's argument with an empty chair should be seen as the perfect metaphor for today's GOP. Uninterested in reality, they spend their time in a world of make-believe pretending to be knights slaying imaginary dragons. Dissatisfied with the word as it is and real-life problems, they instead prefer to campaign against fantasy.
This is absolutely the best description of the 21st-century GOP that I've every read. Kudos for hitting the nail on the head.
Tis true. The wingnuts simply live in a world that doesn't exist. Anybody surprised by this does not have any interaction with them, and lives in their own sheltered world.
In a way, if someone is surprised by the outrageous ignorance and reality denial of wingnuts, then they're living in their own cloistered world of denial. The Republicans and the Useful Idiots really truly are nuts. And its head-in-the-sand willful ignorance to not know it. These people are really dangerous to not only this country but the entire world.
In several ways, this is the most important election this country has ever had for not only the U.S., but the world. Appointment of a Supreme Court judge can determine whether we erase the 20th century or not. Determining how this country proceeds on fossil fuel use will affect the entire world for possibly 1000 years. In both, the Republicans look not to the future but to the past. Republicans are simply the most dangerous group of people on the planet.
A serious public official in Rand Paul's position would, after being corrected like he was by Krugman, check for himself if he were wrong and act correspondingly. Paul won't. He'll say the same thing next week. And the week after that. And next time he or any other Republican is wrong on any matter that is objectively checkable, they'll do the same exact un-self-correcting thing: ignore their ignorance. It has to be willful. It just has to be.
Oh please. Every time Benen says something "factual" one has to find the catch. There's always a catch, some way of defining the problem so that "evidence" supports the pre-determined conclusion.
The catch here is that Krugman is talking about state and local, while Paul is talking about Federal. According to ABC there are 143,000 more Federal employees. So they're both right, while Benen is just a shill.
It's a sad, sad, sight.
Ahhh Shooter you never fail US. Exhibit A, Shooter and it's people like Shooter that put these empty-headed GOTP'ers into office! Much like Eastwood, they never let reality intrude on their hallucinations or math. Thank you Shooter once again, you have proved the point being made.
Ignorance isn't bliss - it's just ignorance.
nice that you can read Rand Paul's mind. (And even the 143K Federal increase pales before Bush's increase in federal jobs, and the growth in population.)
And don't state and local public jobs, e.g., teachers, depend on federal assistance?
That is incorrect, drive-by-dumba$$, Mr. Mitty. Paul was incredulous. He was absolutely gobsmacked that Krugman would make such a "ridiculous" assertion. You don't get that incredulous on a distinction and not state it.
Meanwhile, Krugman has repeatedly pointed out in his writings the public/private employment comparison and pointed out it's state and local governemnt that has taken the hit AND WHY: Wingnut austerity in the face of the greatest economic dislocation since the Great Depression.
What is equally telling about the idiocy of the libertarians (and wingnuts of all flavors) like Paul is their absolute confidence in their alternate reality that they're so invested in that they have no qualms asserting, on national TV, that a Nobel Prize-winning economist is mistaken on an easily verified objective fact. Idiots like you and Paul assume you've got the goods to call balls and strikes in a game you know nothing about and in which you are easily outclassed by even lay observers of the field. The situation is similar in climate science.
Ignorance isn't bliss - it's just ignorance.
Pooper242 isn't bliss - it's just poop.
Another nail in the coffin that Paul knew what he was talking about is what he DID say, of which were:
Paul: "The growth of government is enormous under President Obama." Even if Paul was talking about federal government, there is no reasonable person that would ascribe the word 'enormous' to the piddly growth in the federal government.
Paul: "Are there less people employed or more people employed now by government?" There's only one conclusion. That assnapkin didn't know what he was talking about and he was cocksure he did.
Republicans: Always wrong, never in doubt. And never, ever reticent to prove it.
The biggest way in which this could be a supremely important election is just the fact that Republicans are making it out to be such. That could just be taken as grandiose politicking, but they've been outdoing themselves in the overheated rhetoric department over the last few years, and I get the feeling that at least some of that is them talking themselves into something. If they win the White House and both houses of Congress in November, I think they'll set about making the consequences of the election extremely significant. And the same could happen if they lose. Without wishing to draw direct parallels, it still should be pointed out that secession action was preceded by years of secessionist talk.
Shorter version and official Republican Policy:
"I won't let your facts interfere with my reality"
Like religion, Republican "Reality" is an act of faith.
If it was the 60's we could blame it on mind altering substances, as it appears that's where the ideas come from
What do you expect from people who believe the Bible is fact and science is a hoax? Facts and abstract concepts are for liberals.
Paul appears to be a textbook illustration of that psychology study finding about how people have trouble reconciling facts that are at odds with their preconceived assumptions and previously-held views.
The study seemed to indicate that we all suffer from this, to some degree. Constant vigilance! I worry about it all the time. We have to constantly challenge ourselves to see outside our boxes, to work to make things that appear invisible (unthinking blind spots) visible.
It's not easy. I love TRMS, for instance. But I comb the Internet constantly, because I worry that the really religious viewers (of which I am one) will also get caught in a bubble of common referents, tropes, shorthand, and commonplaces. Not because anyone is TRYING to do that (and with luck, none of us will ever do it in as embarrassing fashion as Rand Paul above), but because it is a natural outcome of a common discourse, especially focused on as compelling and persuasive a speaker as RM. That is why the voices of her guests (and other staffers) are so important too.
So before we fall over patting ourselves on the back for not being in as blind of a cognitive dissonance bubble as Rand Paul, remember, ANYONE can catch the "blind spot" disease, visible only to those who have a truly outside perspective.
Will, I've noticed since last weekend that there's something buggy going on with the Newsvine comment ID permalinks (in Chrome, at least). Permalink comment ID (or just any additional script at end of URL) automatically scrolls to the bottom, and in some cases (on my home machine, tho not here at work--both Macs) freezes. At home, my only way out is to close the tab. To be able to comment at all at home, I have to click the unscripted naked permalink, and then scroll to where I need to go.
I'd say the anchor links are broken. And maybe the rules that are attaching the script to the URL.
He's on these shows because he represents the general Republican point of view. It really is that simple.
The Republicans have been shouting that they are the party of 'smaller government', and once government shrinks, the economy will bloom and stuff.
They simply can't accept that government has shrunk under Obama AND that a shrinking government has cause more problems and not fewer. To accept that would be to accept that the entire premise of their parties economic platform for the last 30 years has been bull@!$%#.
The latest economic calamity caused by 8 years of 'Bushenomics' (which was the same as Reganomic, which will be the same as Romnenomics) has just finally shone a bright light on exactly how horrendous it all has been.
The problem as it impacts employment goes much deeper than the loss of government jobs alone suggests. I estimate that for each single government job lost at the state and local levels there are at least one or possibly two or more private sector jobs lost from businesses that provide service and materials to government.
Local and state governments are in deep budgetary holes largely due to their underfunded and under performing pension funds. Efforts to stop digging the holes deeper are taking much needed revenues from essential governmental functions. And voters are in a dark mood about increasing taxes to relieve this tension in most states. And where taxes have been increased, like in Illinois, the revenues have fallen far short of what is needed. Many state employees have taken early retirements to avoid changes proposed to reduce their pension benefits.
The federal government used to share revenues with the states much more than it does now. I recall that this reversal started with Reagan.
Perhaps a real debate in this campaign needs to be waged over the question of economic stimulus to the states and local governments by way of revenue sharing in this critical time. Much of the benefit of the first stimulus was achieved in exactly this way. Not so much in the wording, but revenue sharing was exactly what it was.
Under funded pensions are just one part of the problem. The costs of health benefits also add to the problems states face. Sending states more money will only perpetuate the problem until reforms are enacted. It is time for public employees to stop taxpayers from being held hostage.
The gop collapse our economy , and states budgets , by allowing corruption on wall st and in the mortgage industry , and your conclusion is that retired teachers are holding america hostage ...
Is it any wonder that obama and trying to work and reason with these people is completely futile?
Tom . . . The cost of public employees' health insurance is one of the best arguments (if not THE best) for single payer health care financed by an increase in the Medicare payroll tax.
The health insurance component of public employee compensation often approaches 25-30% of base salary. It's not unusual for the federal, state, or local government to be paying most of the $12K-$15K (or more!) cost of health insurance for someone making around $50K.
Increasing the Medicare tax rate to around 5% (a total of 10%, since the employer pays the same amount) of salary would provide a substantial savings. Even if one factors in a supplemental policy that would bring benefits to the same level those workers currently receive, we'd still be talking about a much smaller percentage of pay going to insurance coverage.
Reducing the cost per employee would allow us to hire more workers. There would also be enough savings to move money into some other programs, including infrastructure repair/construction, research, and other investments in long term economic development.
Merryblues - you have framed the situation correctly, however I disagree with your position of sending federal money to the states to makeup their deficits. The state governors are making the tough budget cuts - WI's Walker, NJ's Christie and NY's Cuomo. Unfortunately CA's Moonbeam Brown has not gotten the memo and is putting higher taxes to the voters to decide in Nov. if the predominantly dem voters pass an increase in taxes, I'm moving to a lower taxing state.
Tom - Right on!
Patngo - so all the fault of the collapse of the economy is due to the GOP? So Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, Maxine Waters all get a pass for pushing the banks to make sub-prime loans so that their constituents could buy homes too? There was enough blame to go around from both parties. If you think that one party is blameless and other is completely to blame, then reasoning with you is completely futile.
"The size of Obama's government is enormous and it's coming after our white women."
Funny! You know he is half white, so I doubt the enormous speculation unless of course you have first hand experience?
As a Kentuckian, Rand Paul is an utter embarrassment to the state. 2014 can't come soon enough!
Yeah, not like Jim Bunning.
Face it, Kentucky hasn't had a senator who wasn't an embarrassment to the state since Wendell Ford retired and the fact that the majority of Kentuckians aren't actually embarrassed by them is kind of the problem.
(Yeah, born and raised there.)
Agreed. Kentuckians get what they deserve. Continuing to vote for McConnell and electing Rand Paul will perpetuate our state's problems of poor health, drug abuse, poverty, etc. indefinitely.
Only when Kentuckians stop voting against their owns self interests will things improve. Coming from a guy who's lived in central KY for 21 years.
Uh, oh. This is scary. So many fellow Kentuckians here. Steve is right; most Kentuckians aren't embarrassed by the embarrassment that is KY Senators (and Congressman). Jim Bunning had to have been one of the stupidest men to ever be a Senator. And Mitch McConnell is the worst Senator in the Universe.
Anybody from Louisville?
citizen_pain . . . It's not just Kentuckians. Look at the red states in general.
With few exceptions (Texas, Utah) they're relatively poor, their populaces are undereducated and less healthy, and their quality of life in general is lower.
Yet they keep voting Republican. What's strange to me is that, as they've declined, they become even more reliably Republican. Doesn't this seem to contradict the idea that voters hold the party in power responsible for their own economic decline?
It's also ironic that they despise "welfare"--and those getting it--so much. These are "taker" states, getting more money from the federal government than they pay in taxes. Even funnier, it's the people in the places they hate so much, like those on the East and West Coasts, who are subsidizing them.
LEX
Moved away in the 80s, but the thing is, when you're born and raised in (or, like me, merely near) mountains, the place they're in just never stops being "home," even after decades.
And, of course, all the family's still in central Ky.
Ahhh, good, more Card fans! Hahahahaha...
Anyway, Jefferson and Fayette are practically the only oases of civilization in our redder-then-most-of-the-red states. I don't think most people realize that KY was either 3rd or 4th reddest state when it came to percentage difference between McCain and Obama in 2008 (16.2%). Completely embarrassing.
States that were bluer than KY: TX (11.8%), SC (9.0%), TN (15.1%), WV (13.1%), MS (13.2%). Ughhhh.
Then we elect a Democratic governor, thank all the gods. Weird, weird state politically.
As for always being home, yep. Lived in Orlando and Seattle for a long time, but Louisville was really always home. Even if you out-in-the-state anti-city folks really dislike it, Louisville's actually a really cool place. Kind of an Austin-in-Texas sort of thing but not quite as in sharp relief.
God and nature at times are closely related together at times in folklore, but the realities of what really is, is quite different. We have learned over time that actual acts of nature have impact over us such as earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes, tsunamis, volcanoes, etc, but there is very little that we can do over these events, except to take cover and protect ourselves. For someone like Jesus who explained God as loving and wanting good things for people, especially for those people in plight, why would God want to be doing things to hurt us? Except that is how the earth is made with its moving crusts, wind currents, water movements, and its direct interaction of fire by lightning or some other ignition source. Regular what people call acts of God (events happening in nature) happen all the time. Thus if we do look at what our impact is on the planet, we do know we dramatically increase the carbon dioxide levels in our atmosphere among other things and that does have a major impact on the earth. We have seen in Texas of how they have injected wastewater of unknown chemicals back into the ground that cause earthquakes. We are seeing how Global Warming is affecting the whole planet with increases in temperature causing droughts, rising ocean levels, more severe storms, stronger hurricanes, erratic weather patterns that will put storms with tornadoes in places where they rarely occur, etc.. If there is anything that God tells us, it is our involvement and impact to others and this planet. The one main thing that God does tell us is that it is us that can be the problem on this planet and we are the ones who could too easily destroy it. It is our ability to gain in knowledge to either live and prosper or destroy everything including ourselves. These days there is really only one critical choice we have today, do we choose life or death.
"Are you arguing that there are fewer government employees under Obama than they were under Bush?"
Told that the facts are incontrovertible, Paul responded, "No, the size of government is enormous under President Obama."
They were talking past each other. While the number of state and municipal workers has decreased, the number of Federal workers has indeed increased under the President.
**Citation needed**
And while you're scanning Redstate for the most pretzel-logic numbers Erikson can make up, try understanding some actual facts:
http://www.economist.com/blogs/buttonwood/2012/07/economic-policy
"the growth in public sector employment in the first four years of recent Presidencies. As you can see, it has contracted under Barack Obama"
Again you make the same mistake that Benin does. Federal employment has grown trending much higher during the 2010 hiring of census workers and then down last year with their layoffs for a total net of 140,000-15000 permanent job increase.
Again...**Citation needed**
Try reading the text of the linked article. Net gain of only 16k fed jobs under Obama, still less fed workers than under Reagan.
Don't expect a reply unless you have some, y'know, facts.
right, but no matter how many jobs Obama may have added, the net amount of government jobs, both federally and state/local, has decreased. steve was quoting from paul krugman, who seems to have gotten his information from http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?s[1][id]=USGOVT# . the line of TOTAL government jobs is going down, so public sector employment is in the red.
Essentially correct. The Federal Government has more employees today than in 2009 however that number is still a hundred thousand plus LESS than under the Reagan/Bush era in the late 80s, early 90s. So by no means a superlative number.
Another problem with comparisons is that in recent wars we have "outsourced" federal support which was essential workforce for the effort but off-books in terms of the "size" of the Government. As we reduce our overseas wars we are seeing these arrangements end.
bannedagain: total increase in Federal jobs was 16,000 (not the ten times greater number you gave). Compare that to the increase in population for a baseline, then consider that the largest growing segment of those Federal jobs is in ... (wait for it) ...
"Homeland security:" the post-911 surveillance state. Along with the tanks/planes/carriers military budget, the one Federal program that the Republicans want to grow.
large:
You source which is "Bank Credit Analyst" is plainly wrong.
"The number of federal employees grew by 123,000, or 6.2%, under President Obama, according to the White House's Office of Management and Budget.
Much of the hiring increases came in the departments of homeland security, justice, veterans and defense.
The federal payroll has been expanding since President Bush took office, after declining during the Clinton administration. But it's still a tad smaller than it was in 1992, said Craig Jennings, a federal budget expert at the progressive think tank OMB Watch.
The federal government has been one of the few areas that's grown during the economic downturn. The private sector remains down 1.1 million jobs from the start of 2009, while state and local governments have shed 635,000 positions."
http://money.cnn.com/2012/01/25/news/economy/obama_government/index.htm
That was January. The numbers are up another 10,000-20,000 since then based on previous trends. At any given time, even the Federal government itself can't tell you how many employees it actually has since it is the largest single employer in the country with just under 2.8 million employees. walmart by contrast has about 2.1 million and is the largest private employer.
http://www.opm.gov/feddata/historicaltables/totalgovernmentsince1962.asp
Here's where the numbers are: BLS CES9091000001
And its the over all dishonesty of conservatives on the subject , you claim to want small gov , then you all do the exact opposite of that , then you complain when dems run the gov the exact same way as you do
Some times it has to grow , then there are times to pull back , you people can not even be honest about the basics of it , which is why listening to your whining has become the number one waste of time in DC at this point , there is your government waste
Shorter banned...
Government employees = government employees except when we need to change the definition of government to fit our lies.
(2) why is Rand Paul invited onto Sunday shows as if he has something worthwhile to contribute to the discourse?
Good question. I would love to hear their answer.
"Since the start of the recession, we've lost more jobs in government than any other sector of the economy."
Asotundingly untrue. We've lost more than three times that number in the construction industry.
i've noticed that you continually make these blanket statements, but you never ever provide anything to support them. as you notice in the quote you included, there is the support for that statement. you, on the other hand, have none. since i have confidence in the source that was included in the quote, i have to assume that you're spouting so much bull@!$%#.
Fair enough, how many sources do you want?
"Construction employment fell by 1.5 million 1 during the December 2007–June 2009 recession, 2 bringing employment in the industry to the lowest level since March 1998. The losses during the recession represented a 19.8-percent decline in construction employment, the largest percent decline of any nonfarm industry supersector."
http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2011/04/art4exc.htm
"Of course, these massive job losses are nothing new for the construction industry. In December 2009, 53,000 construction jobs vanished. Since the dawn of the Great Recession in December 2007, the construction industry has lost a grand total of 1.9 million jobs"
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/pf_article_108850.html
As the jobless rate hovers around 10%, unemployment in construction jumped to 24.7%, highest on record since 1976. Construction has accounted for nearly a quarter of all job losses the past year, though the industry employs 4.3% of non-farm employees. Even manufacturing added 11,000 jobs in January, its first net increase since the recession began in December 2007."
http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/employment/2010-02-25-construction25_ST_N.htm
There you are both scholarly and general media references. You can't take what Benin writes literally. He's a writer-producer telling a story, not an economist or historian.
Even with the link,you can't read data.
It says Construction -494,000
Government -642,000
What a shame--even with evidence you can't let your stupid ideology see reason.
With or without blood sucking worms like you,USA will build itself when enough number of sane people come together.
kshayam ;
"Construction employment fell by 1.5 million 1 during the December 2007–June 2009 recession,"
You're illiterate apparetnly.
I don't want to waste time on this.Let me just make this clear.
In the link than any other sector,the post provided delta numbers and from
"Construction employment fell by 1.5 million 1 during the December 2007–June 2009 recession," you provided loses.
You shouldn't confuse these two.If you have a little bit of statistics in your CV you'd understand what i am trying to say.
Don't just copy and paste,try to understand what you're pasting first.
you're trying to say the Bureau of Labor Statistics is wrong. Good luck with that.
I am not [trying] to say anything.The numbers on the post article are from the BLS and National Bureau of Economic Research with the period 2009-2012.
They provide delta numbers as oppose to Job loses.
delta numbers = initial numbers - final numbers.This tells a bigger and broader story about the Economy and trend.This is why gov't jobs are dragging the Recovery.
When you copy and paste jobs loses from 2007-2009,that in and of itself doesn't say that much.
Don't get confused by those things my friend.
Your arguments are ignorant of the nature of the construction industry in which there are few Walmart type employers. There is simply no question, nor can you find anyone in a postion of authority who would say that there have been more government job losses than construction industry job losses. The idea is absurd on it's face and is refuted by the numbers from evey reputable body such as BLS. Your position is completely untenable which is why you offer no voice but your own as proof.
You don't really have a point, banned. Of course construction job losses are bad. It's because the housing bubble burst and the oversupply of housing stock hasn't been exhausted. Everybody knows that. But what everybody doesn't realize is that government sector job losses have truly hurt. Probably 1 to 1.5 percentage points. (I could look it up by I don't feel like it.) Construction jobs WON'T come back till the oversupply has been taken care of. Nothing any President can do about that. But there is something that could be done about the public sector jobs. And Republicans prefer their discredited austerity.
Once again, this is Boehner's economy.
"Construction employment fell by 1.5 million 1 during the December 2007–June 2009 recession"
And Obama is to blame for every one of those job losses during December 2007 to January 2009 because...
Investing in infrastructure would cure what Banned is whining about , but he would have the same @!$%# fit as his politicians if it is even suggested , what a waste of air
My point is that Benin's post was indisputably incorrect on this point.
The above three posts are knocking down straw men, not what I wrote.
Yeah well, it's not a point you are going to get any points on. Because the fact of the matter is that, even though nothing can be done about housing construction jobs, the government could do something about BOTH public sector AND construction jobs (with badly needed infrastructure).
So the blame for the unemployment lies precisely with those who are assertively positive about intentionally obstructing taking action on the unemployment problem when we know the problem could be addressed.
No points for you.
no doubt you've heard of 'alternate reality'?
From the Krugman piece linked above:
"Since bottoming out a year after Mr. Obama took office, private-sector employment has risen by 4.6 million; but government employment, which normally rises more or less in line with population growth, has instead fallen by 571,000."
No it hasn't. If you look at the chart Krugman uses, it plainly includes 2008 the year before Obama took office. The actual number is about 50,000 or so less under Obama.
"Since Obama took office, 636,000 state and local jobs have been cut. In 2011 alone, 113,000 jobs were cut in local schools, 68,000 jobs were cut in local government administration, and 78,000 jobs were cut in state government administration, according to a Commerce Department report.
“It’s the public sector that’s the thing contributing to that entire overall decline of jobs since he took office,” said Heidi Shierholz, a labor market economist at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. “It just wipes out a huge share of the job growth.”
But while state and local jobs evaporated, Labor Department statistics show that the federal government , not counting the postal service, has grown by 143,000 employees during Obama’s tenure, a fact that Obama’s Republican rival Mitt Romney is quick to criticize."
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/06/government-jobs-loss-president-obamas-catch-22/
That means the net government job losses under Obama are just about 520,000-530,000
I'd still like to see support for the "143,000" figure. Curious as to whether they're still adding an census employees to the mix. also not sure why we're not counting Postal job losses. Those were still jobs, right?
But there a few facts that are not debatable: The party line of the GOP is that public-sector jobs aren't "real". If that's true, then any net reduction under Obama should be a good thing, right? (I personally disagree.)
The GOP is refusing to lift a finger on employment, and has since Obama took office. They want people out of work.
To say Obama doesn't have a plan is an outright lie. They just refuse to bring it to a vote, because they're vindictive cowards. (the coward part was an opinion based on careful observation).
And to top it off, do you know who doesn't have an actual plan? Mitt Romney. Paul Ryan. John Boehner. Mitch McConnell.
Additional tax cuts is not only not a "plan", it's failed policy. Even Reagan acknowledged as much. (Not in words of course-that would have been embarrassing.)
"Curious as to whether they're still adding an census employees to the mix. also not sure why we're not counting"
The article is from June of this year and the census workers had all been long laid off by then.
The rest of your post is very reasonable but a point of view argument if you know what I mean.
I'm sorry, but the census issue is a reasonable question, given that I don't know where the number comes from. Boehner for instance has repeatedly included census workers in his claim that Obama added thousands of people to the federal payroll.
And most of my argument isn't "point of view" at all.
Obama has a Jobs Act. The House refuses to vote on it.
The house hasn't passed a single piece of legislation that will create jobs. they've mostly been obsessed with contraception and abortion.
The Republicans jobs plan is to cut taxes. That's it. If they have something more, they're not telling anyone and they're not doing it. So either that's the case and they just don't want the economy to improve under Obama, or they don't really have a plan.
And yes, I suppose that from the point of view of the top 1%, trickle-down worked pretty well.
The number come from the White House itself as in the link I posted in another part of this thread. I just didn't cite it again.
sure, the self-certified ' doctor' is gonna school the NOBEL PRIZE WINNING ECONOMIST.
G-T-F-O-H
GOP's objective, as McConnell admitted, was to make President Obama a one term president, at all costs, AT ALL COSTS!
It doesn't matter what the reality is or what the facts show. Their message is the same and 'Pete and Repeat' will repeat the same crap; ""President Obama is a Democrat, he's half black, he's literally giving away the store... your hard earned money is going to lazy welfare people, he is expanding government, the sky is falling!!!"
The GOP is manipulating the teabaggers, a lot of them liberatarians and a some ignorant, but some of them do have brains. We need to find a way to break the cycle of lies.
The Democrats are not doing enough. We need to go after the constituents that voted for these clowns in the first place. Try making them see reality because it just makes NO sense for people to vote against their own pocket books, against their own well being. I'm talking about the working class poor that are struggling and show up to vote for polititians that have no intension of doing what's best for the them.
It's funny that the group most opposed to raising taxes on the rich are the working poor as opposed to the un working poor who want more benefits.
Boy, old 'bannedagain' must be absolutely terrified of the truth. And of seeing his idol, Rand Paul, found out as a humbug and an ignorant fellow.
So here are a couple of follow-up questions: (1) exactly what is it Rand Paul does with his time when he's supposed to be learning the basics of public policy? and (2) why is Rand Paul invited onto Sunday shows as if he has something worthwhile to contribute to the discourse?
1) It takes a lot of time to run your own accreditation service for dentists.
2) Rand is good for provoking conflict, which sells advertising. Plus, his daddy's worshippers like him too.
He is also busy trying to stop the social security admin from getting its ammunition resupplied
I think it's probably worse. He "is" an ophthalmologist. It's probably worse if you mess up somebody eyesight than their teeth. There are teeth substitutes, but not eye substitutes.
Isn't it better for the country to see at what level Rand Paul is operating at? And isn't it just as well that his constituents see that Rand Paul's reality isn't quite the same as the rest of the country's?
If Rand Paul is operating out of ignorance or sheer denial, then at least you know where he is. If he can recognize that he looks ignorant, perhaps it will bother him enough to improve. Or maybe he won't get it. We keep wondering, how can Mitt Romney keep repeating the same falsehoods day in and day out? Because a lot of people have not had to confront their misperceptions.
It's easy though to just say the guy is out of touch or uninformed. The question is, how do we get more people more informed and in touch, if we're all to do better?
Benen's quote:
does not agree with the source he used
Bannedagain again noted that the jobs lost in construction "during the recession" are much greater than government losses "since the end of the recession."
Careless writing by Benen caused this confusion and is shameful.
Hahahaha...
Benen missed one word, and you go all in for "shameful." Overreact much. That desperate for a 'gotcha?' for a Team Republican Win? Must be looking grim from your vantage point. Good grief.
From Benen's source:
Job losses since end of recession:
Construction: 494, 000
Government: 643, 000
Enough said.
.