Miserable Jobs Report: Thank You Republicans!

As Matt Yglesias explains, “What we continue to see are decent-though not great-private sector job numbers offset by tumbling public sector employment.” And who do we have to thank for the fact that “we have about 500,000 fewer people working for the government since Obama’s inauguration even though the national population is larger than it used to be?” See here for more on that subject:

…In June, local governments reported job losses of 18,000, and the federal government shed 14,000 jobs. Nearly 100,000 local government employees have lost their jobs so far this year, and 464,000 have found themselves jobless since local government employment peaked in September 2008.

That’s right, it’s state and local governments, who are getting pounded by budget cuts and lack of federal assistance, thanks nearly 100% to misguided, reactionary Republican policies that harken back to Herbert Hoover. No, sorry, but as we all SHOULD have learned in Econ 101, you do NOT cut government spending – including federal assistance to state and local governments!!! – during a recession. To the contrary, you want to INCREASE government spending (“G”) during a recession, as a countercyclical means of offsetting the negative business cycle (“C” and “I”). So what do our brilliant Republican friends do? The exact opposite, of course. And what do our brilliant “moderate” Democrats do? Same thing, pretty much; watering down the 2009 “stimulus” program, for instance, so that it was too small and didn’t focus heavily enough on investments, as opposed to tax cuts that hardly anyone even noticed because they were so small, on a per capita basis. Brilliant, guys.

In the end, it’s just maddening to see a great nation like ours led by economic ignoramuses, rigid Randian ideologues, and political “pander bears” who think “the middle” is always the correct answer, even if that “middle” has lurched to the far right over the past few years, and even if that “middle” has absolutely no empirical, theoretical, or any other argument in its favor. Meanwhile, while the Republicans and conservadems play their games, including the absurdity of the debt ceiling “debate” (using the term very loosely), the American people – including many who voted for this crap! – suffer for it. Argh!