Response to: Government Employment
Just some textbook propaganda from Krugman today. I’ll make this quick.
His post:
During today’s round table on ABC, Rand Paul seemed shocked at my claim that government employment is down under Obama. Of course, it is. But maybe he’s thinking of the fact that since govt employment rose under Bush, we’re still at higher absolute levels than we were a decade ago.
That is, however, a strange comparison: other things equal, you’d expect government employment to grow with population (remember, the typical government employee is a schoolteacher). And here’s what has happened to government employment per capita:
I know Republicans know, just know, that government has surged under Obama. But it ain’t so.
Okay.
This graphs TOTAL government employees, including state and local. Obviously, during the bubble years of Bush, states had much higher revenue - which they unwisely used to expand government. After the recession, they had to reduce people on the government payroll; which is a good, rational thing to do when you can’t afford it. And has anyone - other than public employees leeching tax dollars - been adversely affected by this? Democrats pretend like kids are showing up to school with no teacher in the classroom. These reductions are necessary (just ask one of California’s many bankrupt cities).
Krugman also glorifies big government by imploring us to “remember, the typical government employee is a schoolteacher.”
Sweet. But the typical federal government employee is not a schoolteacher. And federal government (the thing Obama runs) HAS grown:
The big spike being the census.
Also keep in mind that the total number of federal employees has risen in the past few years, despite tens of thousands of layoffs by the bankrupt Post Office. Imagine how much higher the numbers would be if the baseline was constant.
I know Republicans know, just know, that government has surged under Obama. But it ain’t so.
Except it has. In employment and spending.
Of course, this comes with the caveat that we’re talking about the Federal Government - not Muncie, Indiana’s school committee.
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damonwells reblogged this from dwangelo
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virgiltexas said:
“And has anyone - other than public employees leeching tax dollars - been adversely affected by this?” Other than the people who use government services? (literally everyone)
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dwangelo posted this
