Did you know the government can't create jobs? Nearly two years ago on CNN, former Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele said, "Not in the history of mankind has the government ever created jobs." And then, "Trust me."
When Steele said those words, he was widely panned. It was dismissed on the right as a gaffe and debunked on the left as grossly inaccurate.
It was laughable... when Steele said it.
Cut to: Meet the Press last Sunday. Erin Burnett CNBC's Squawk on the Street host said, "Government can't create jobs." It was left unchallenged by any of the other panelists and host David Gregory.
Karen Hughes who worked in the Bush administration, her government j-o-b added, "Well... the president seems to have had a revelation that it's actually business that creates jobs."
Then to top it all off the Democratic Congressman James Clyburn -- agreed. "No, we can't create jobs, and we shouldn't. We want them created in the private sector. "
Over 16.5% of Americans are employed by the government, about 22 million of the 135 million payroll jobs. And they're not just pencil-pushing, useless cushy benefit collectors -- but scientists. There are no private sector astronauts. None. Firefighters are government employees as are police. "More cops on the streets" means more government trained and compensated people in your community. The district attorneys, judges and bailiffs draw an Uncle Sam signed paycheck. The government? Law and order.
The second largest employer in the country is the United States Postal Service. Try telling the lady raising her family by delivering your overdue notices that the government can't create jobs.
According to the Department of Labor, the private sector has been steadily adding jobs and the public sector has been cutting jobs at the fastest rate in 30 years. Especially local government jobs: teachers, sanitation workers and librarians.
So the government does, in fact, create jobs. It also slashes them. Cities and states have been balancing their budgets by cutting back on everything. Most infamously Camden, New Jersey is eliminating half of their police force.
To those who work for a living, a job is a job. To those who sloganeer for a living, cutting jobs means magically creating them.
It seems government workers are the new illegal immigrants. They are the new group who are treated like parasites on the system; their jobs are illegitimate and disposable. Lawmakers gleefully talk about eliminating government employees' livelihoods. The rhetoric would have us believe those aren't even jobs.
It's not the banksters and hucksters on Wall Street who wrecked our economy. No, now they're the only ones who can save us! It's not a general revenue slow down tied to a collapse after the Saturnalia of liar loans and real estate cheats. It's those comfortable public servants who are bleeding us dry!
We're told we're bankrupt because of well-paid government employees with "Cadillac health insurance plans." Yes, we still refer to posh things as an American made car from a company, GM, which the U.S. government saved and made profitable again.
So everyone who makes an actual Cadillac can thank the government for their job.
Out of our $3.5 trillion annual budget we dole out around $1.5 trillions on "defense" spending. It really should be considered "offense" spending these days, but I digress. There are some accounting tricks with mandatory and discretionary spending. But added up: it's $1.5 trillion.
What is the military? Jobs. Careers too. Plus a retirement plan and socialized medicine. It's a jobs program the government created. It's also a big wasteful unaccountable sieve for tax dollars. If the GOP-controlled House is really looking to weed out pork (which they arguably are not) they would check out the bacon haven we call the Pentagon.
But, better to stick with the empty and symbolic than tackle the difficult.
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Please give me your next Conservative talking point.
Please give me your next liberal talking point, and be sure to grasp some basic econ before you do.
TARP was a 700 billion dollar give away to a handful of institutions who gamble with other peoples' money and lost it all - gambling done often assets which exist only on paper - and in the process they brought the economy to its knees
USPS is a quickly becoming antiquated technology that delivered a service of vital importance for decades - perhaps centuries - and paid just a living wage to those providing it, persons who unlike the bankers were not systematically stripping the economy of cash and pocketing it while providing nothing in return
nice try
Forget about direct public sector employment. The "government" develops many basic technologies that the private sector then commericalizes for profit. The list is too long to go into here (like TV!) but I heard a rumor that the Internet was a DARPA (or its predecessor) project. Google plans to hire 6000 employees this year.I think there are some more people working in this area too.
Just to show I'm an eqaul opportunity basher, you've got this dummy here http://blogs.reuters.com/gregg-easterbrook/2011/01/20/undisciplined-spending-in-the-name-of-defense/ who says we don't need a certain defense agency because we can get its product from Google Earth and Microsoft. What his research associate : ) failed to note is that Google Earth and Microsoft are getting their product from companies sponsored by this same agency.
Long story short, the government creates a lot of jobs and is responsible for a lot of productive investment.
Let me be your first Fan.
Guess who co-signed the bill that funded the DARPA research on this project... Al Gore. Hence, the right-wing slam against him.
Hey when you lack the ability to utilize logic just use inflammatory language to stir up emotion. Although I guess the author is correct in that all government jobs are paid for through taxpayer money, much like most of the benefits provided to illegal aliens are.
Moreover no one (other than people like Steele) feels the government cannot create jobs, however it has to spend our money to do so, causing a net drain on wealth.
But do not let the facts get in the way of cute arguments.
Without the services provided by government workers, you would either not have the services or would be paying a lot more for them.
You really fail to understand how societies work on the macro level and especially are totally ignorant about wealth creation.
Now did I say we did not need government? Nope I did not. I absolutely think government has a critical role to play but what we are paying for the services we receive is out of balance, moreover unfunded pension liabilities are coming down to cripple the state.
What I did assert is that all government spending is funded through private wealth transfer i.e. taxes. And in my state I am concerned about the rising tax burdern and the continual loss of businesses. Good job jumping to the righteous indignation though, maybe pay attenion next time.
We used to have volunteer fire departments. We could hire non union contractors to do the road repair work. We used to have fewer layers of administrators in our school systems.
It is not that people want to get rid of government services it is that people want the government to efficiently and intelligently spend our tax dollars on those services.
My little town in California pays $300,000 per year for each firefighter (fully loaded from desk clerk to chief)
Why isn't it a drain on wealth when I go to WalMart and by a flat screen TV? That's MY MONEY that they take for that TV. Now I am less wealthy.
But I do, after all, have a flat screen TV, just like when you pay your taxes and you have roads and bridges and safe food and drugs and cops and firemen.
Oh I did not, that's right. Maybe I can be concerned about the continually rising tax rate, the eroding business climate in my state (I only speak for California, I do not pretend to know about other states), the salaries we pay for government employees, and the unfunded pension liabilities that are a coming time bomb and the be annoyed when the author denigrates my and others concerns by using inflammatory language and not even addressing the crux of the issue.
Oh and your walmart example is the worst example ever given. Yes you traded your money for a TV and if you value the TV more than the money, which I am assuming you did, then your personal wealth went up. Moreover if you are like me and have your computer plugged into your TV and do work on your computer then you can actually say your TV is an asset used to produce more wealth.
Some people just don't understand and really don' t want to.
Coping with the realities we would face if the US was to fall into anarchy is something most people don't know how to do.
Without government jobs, as the author notes, you would not have the many social services we need to function as a country.
Your blind faith in the "market" is not only flat out wrong, but is sunk by any rational analysis of the services that are needs for society to function and what organization can most economically provide those services.
It has been proved by hundreds of years of real data, that government provided services are the BEST way to provide the services society needs.
Your ideas of "market based" services has been proven over and over again to be not only not workable but just plain stupid.
The bottom line is you appear to one of those greedy people that want all the services that society needs and provides but are unwilling to pay for them.
They get it from ME through my investment dollars or by my purchase of their products.
Don't voice that too loudly otherwise more government workers will be out of work and they will be bringing in real illegal immigrants and having them do the job for less money, with no benefits to have to pay. I mean they might as well, the government does not enforce our immigration laws now and that is what is happening in the private sector and has been for years.
The Democratic party no longer really exists. Now there is NO champion for the American working class, the poor, the elderly, the children. We are all now meat for the Republican greed-hate corporatocracy. The Republican Utopia is at hand.