“He wants another stimulus. He wants to hire more government workers. He says we need more fireman, more policemen, more teachers. Did he not get the message of Wisconsin? The American people did…it’s time to cut back on government.”
~Mitt Romney
It’s pretty common for conservatives to talk about cutting government spending – that’s all they talk about … that and tax cuts for the wealthy. But it’s not often the draw a correlation between cutting government spending and what that actually means in real terms. Do Americans support having more teachers, police and firemen or do they prefer tax cuts for the wealthy? Because you can’t have both. So – today … as Mitt Romney bungles his opportunity to bash President Obama for his bumper sticker, out of context statement “the private sector is doing fine”.
“The truth of the matter is that, as i said, we’ve created 4.3 million jobs over the last 27 months, over 800,000 just this year alone. The private sector is doing fine. Where we’re seeing weaknesses in our economy have to do with state and local government”
~President Obama
And what he’s saying is actually TRUE. Cuts in government spending have cost 1.7 million jobs and the unemployment rate would be at 7% or lower right now if the cuts in government spending never took place. (source). Yes – the deficits are not coming solely from government spending but from cuts in revenues due to tax cuts and the Bush economic crisis.
Via Talking Points Memo HERE - you can see the blue line is going down (government sector jobs) and the red line is going up (private jobs):
You can watch President Obama’s first part of his Q&A at his press conference today below. He says “the private sector is doing fine” at 14:20:
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[...] the importance of teachers, firemen and police in our communities. We wrote yesterday about this HERE: “He wants another stimulus. He wants to hire more government workers. He says we need more [...]
[...] The GOP war on civil servants But – while the so called conservatives continue their war on public sector employees and “government spending” most of which is a result of Bush’s economic policies … what they do not say … what you never hear among the conservative crowds is a very simple mathematical equation. If public sector employment were maintained at the same rate as under George W. Bush … the economy would be almost at 7% unemployment. (source) It is simple math. Republicans know it; Democrats know it. And the Republicans have been ensuring that equation works to their political favor knowing the average American just doesn’t get it. It has gotten so bad that even Mitt Romney has publicly come out against hiring more teachers, police and firefighters – you know … those union goons living off the government teet. (source) [...]
[...] Remember the time that Romney scoffed at hiring more firefighters, teachers and police as proposed in the American Jobs Act? In June – Mitt Romney openly came out against hiring more teachers, police officers and firemen …ya know – government workers. You can see his position on that in his own words HERE. [...]