What: "Employment during the economic recovery", Economic Policy Institute
When: July 6, 2011
The next time you hear a Republican complaining about jobs, asking the president where are the jobs, prattling on about the "job creators", or accusing the Obama administration of destroying jobs—essentially, whatever—remember this:
Or, as Steve Benen explained this week:
Layoffs at the state and local level were mitigated in 2009 by the Recovery Act, which saved thousands of jobs that would have otherwise been eliminated. Those funds have since been exhausted, and the public sector is back to making severe layoffs.
This is what David Leonhardt recently described as "an unforced economic error" — with all of the problems we can't control, this is one problem we know exactly how to prevent. We just choose not to, thanks to the Republicans' ideology.
Indeed, it's important to remember that these job losses are, in the eyes of Republicans, a positive development. Under the GOP economic model, the public sector is supposed to lose jobs, and as part of the party's austerity agenda, this is a problem that must get worse on purpose.
Earlier this year, for example, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) was asked about his spending-cut plans and the fact that the cuts would force thousands of public-sector workers from their jobs. "So be it," the Republican said.
In other words, deliberately making unemployment worse wasn't seen as a problem. This is a feature of the GOP model, not a bug
But the corollary, that the Republicans thus have an interest in keeping unemployment high seems somewhat severe, does it not, in the context of accusation?
But what is it that we see? Policies Republicans are fighting for that have the effect of hurting the employment outlook.
It's okay to tell yourself this is not really happening, but keep it in mind the next time you hear a Republican say anything about jobs.
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