The original article has Boehner admitting that the short term outlook for jobs is not good and he doesn't care. Also in the original article, the author admits that the long term outlook for jobs would be improved. It was one of the parts not bolded by the OP (gee, I wonder why). Less spending now and improved future prospects sounds better than more spending now, better current job situations, but worse future prospects to me. If it is unpatriotic for me to hope that someone who has political views more similar to my own than the current president is elected in 2012 then "so be it."
I would rep you elventy-billion times for this if I could. In a thread full of the usual partisan malarky and bull**** policy disputes, you speak the simple truth. /thread /discussion /everything related to GOP vs Democrat fiscal policy.
I really don't care about the "so be it", we know the republican leadership has to play to the tea party types. that's the nature of the game now. but how can the media just let this guy get away with a flat out like. its amazing.
In vaguely related news, republicans in WI are crushing unions and punishing poor public sector employees under the mantra of "budget cuts". The priorities of these folks are severely ****ed up.
Neg repped for stealing my idea. Does the fact that that scene is the first thing that popped into my head when I saw the thread title make me a bona fide Star Wars nerd?
All the other political crap to the side, I do agree that we shouldn't avoid job cuts simply because of their contributions to unemployment. If those workers are not creating value at a premium to their cost, they should be cut. Of course, I can't tell from here if they do create sufficient value or not.
The thing is, when the government gives somebody a job, they have to do it by taking away the spending power of the people (whose demand fuels economic growth). They never actually produce anything. They just redistribute our wealth toward projects that do more to help the politically well connected (i.e. big corporations, Israel, NATO, third-world nations) than they do to help the people being taxed to support them.
Does a soldier or a firefighter or a food inspector or a weatherman or an air traffic controller or an infectious disease expert or a seismologist or a park ranger or a border patrol agent or an astronaut or an extension agent or a highway engineer or a secret service agent or an archivist or a map specialist produce anything? Some do, but all have value to society beyond that part of society which is well-connected.
No, you said "They never actually produce anything" when referring to government workers. Would you like to retract this statement?
The problem though is, at least in the original article, he doesn't specify a time period for what that long term outlook is or how much the employment situation will improve. He is accepting numbers for short term but not really providing much detail in the long term. It seems rather self-serving of him to posit on a nebulous rosy future, that benefits his party politically, to counter what is a very bad short term outlook which he admits to not caring about. I don't think you and Boehner's stand's are unpatriotic but I would say they it is hypocritical to criticize Obama regarding recent unemployment numbers when you Boehner admits that he doesn't care about current and near future unemployment.
The thing is, this is not true at all. Government workers produce trillions of dollars of goods and services, consume trillions worth, which in turn generates trillions of dollars more worth of economic activity. Economics is not a zero sum game - you can create value out of things that are greater than the sum of parts - there is a concept called multiplier.
Yes, there is a concept called multiplier, and government created jobs do a far far worse job than private sector spending. (plausibly unbiased source ) If you have to tax to fund that stimulus, then you have now shrunk the economy to boot. You want a freaking multiplier? Implement a system where newly created small businesses don't have to pay taxes for five years. Small business creation and the corresponding job creation will go through the roof - and the government will reap the rewards in income tax and fewer people on the unemployment rolls. So simple, but it will never happen because the government is in the business of increasing the size of the government. The democrats are just better at it than the republicans.
