Pushing the car the wrong way
80,ooo jobs were created in June. I’m not sure what everyone expected. This is about what I had expected. There is nothing I can see that would cause employers to start hiring massive numbers of Americans. There is nothing out there. We are stuck in the mud. Republicans are pushing on the front of the car. Democrats are sort of pushing at the back of the jobs car (because we have these Blue Dog Dems, I have to say “sort of”) and we aren’t moving anywhere. Add to this the confusion that is Europe and I’m surprised that the job market created 80,000.
Lost in these numbers is the fact that the government continues to shed jobs. Over the last three months, the public sector has lost over 16,000 per month. We have lost over 2.3 million public sector jobs since the start of the recession. This is the problem now. As the economy was starting to make a comeback, federal, state and local governments started cutting the payrolls. Now, I’m not going to say that Republicans and their cut here and there and everywhere philosophy is killing our recovery. You already know it. You know that Republicans limited the stimulus. You know that the GOP has cut aid to states. As a matter of fact, it was GOP state legislators who refused stimulus money that would have prevented these public sector loses. So, when Republicans scream about how “bad” the economy is, I can only laugh. The economy would be much, much better if they didn’t spend all of their time pushing the car in the wrong direction.
We need jobs. We need jobs that pay a living wage. We need jobs now. If Republicans have a plan that would facilitate the hiring of millions of Americans now, I’m willing to hear it. Everything that they propose rings of trickle-down economics, which doesn’t work. Ask George W. Bush. He presided over the worst job creation economy over the last 60 years. The government is the only organization that can hire millions of Americans now.