Yesterday, the President gave a Press Conference about the Economy, what it's current state is and what he intends to do about it during which he did something extraordinary.
He told the truth.
Watching live, I didn't think there's was anything controversial in what he said. Yes, the private sector is "Doing Fine", they've added about 4 Million Jobs since the President took office. If there's a clear problem with the economy, it's been with public sector jobs which in various states have declined sharply due to tight budgets. If not for those public sector jobs losses unemployment would be at 7% Now.
Naturally Mitt Romney doesn't see it that way. From Thinkprogress
Romney said of Obama, “he wants another stimulus, he wants to hire more government workers. He says we need more fireman, more policeman, more teachers. Did he not get the message of Wisconsin? The American people did. It’s time for us to cut back on government and help the American people.”
No, what Wisconsin taught us is just how fast America is becoming an
Oligarchy, a Corporate Feudalist State.
Apparently to Mitt, police, fireman and teachers simply don't count a part of the "American People". They are the enemy who must be crushed into fine, chalky powder. They are parasites on the backs on the taxpayers, leaches and mosquiitos to be burned and flicked off.
But then that's been the default setting for the GOP for some time.
This is what the President (whom I'm no longer going to simply call "Obama" he's the President, he deserves the respect). From TPM
“[A]fter there was a recession under Ronald Reagan, government employment went way up. It went up after the recessions under the first George Bush and the second George Bush,” he said. “So each time there was a recession with a Republican president, compensated — we compensated by making sure that government didn’t see a drastic reduction in employment. The only time government employment has gone down during a recession has been under me. So I make that point just so you don’t buy into this whole bloated government argument that you hear. And frankly, if Congress had said yes to helping states put teachers back to work and put the economy before our politics, then tens of thousands more teachers in New York would have a job right now. That is a fact. And that would mean not only a lower unemployment rate, but also more customers for business.”
More from
Greg Sargent.
One of the components of the American Jobs Act that Obama continues to demand that Republicans pass would invest $35 billion in federal funds to keep cops, firefighters, and teachers on the job. Republicans, Romney included, oppose this plan. Central to their argument against this type of investment is to keep the focus on public sector workers as a class, arguing that they are bilking the taxpayer and are to blame for the economic plight of struggling Americans. As Romney recently put it: “We have 145,000 more government workers under this president. Let’s send them home and put you back to work.”
NYTimes
That investment would also help balance state budgets, and they seem pretty desperate to do that since several states appropriated the money that was earmarked from the Housing Robosigning Settlement to do exactly that, rather than help pay back the homeowners who were ripped off by their mortgage company.
In a budget proposed this week, California joined more than a dozen states that want to help close gaping shortfalls using money paid by the nation’s biggest banks and earmarked for foreclosure prevention, investigations of financial fraud and blunting the ill effects of the housing crisis. California was awarded more than $400 million from the banks, and Gov. Jerry Brown has proposed using the bulk of that sum to pay the state’s debts.
The money was part of a national settlement valued at $25 billion and negotiated with five big banks over abuses in their mortgage and foreclosure processes.
So it's pretty clear the State know they need a hot cash injection, since they're basically willing to
steal it from ripped off former home owners.
Mitt's argument, that teachers, firefighters and police are dragging America down has a great big hole in the middle of it. And that hole looks like this.
![](http://i1141.photobucket.com/albums/n594/Frank_Vyan_Walton/gov-jobs-ue.png)
As you can see according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and the Murdoch Street Journal if not for public sector job layoffs in places like, Wisconsin, the overall nation rate of unemployment would be aggressively nosediving toward 6% right now.
So exactly how does that hurt the American People?
Mitt constantly claims that the President is "pitting Americans against each other" - well what is it when you say American Government Workers are the "problem"? Is that supposed to be a criticism of the French? Of Al Qeada? If you want to save the country Mitt, you can't do it by destroying the country.
You can't have it both ways.
Vyan