Hey, asshole, where are you going to get the money to pay them?

Government Can Create Jobs: By Hiring People

Peter S. Goodman

The government can't create jobs. Only the private sector can. So ditch the naïve talk that Uncle Sam can wade into this economic mess and do anything meaningful to fix it.

We hear these sorts of assertions with increasing regularity these days, a rhetorical shrug at the reality that the American economy is stuck in a hole, leaving millions of people out work and unable to pay their bills. While the political impediments to action remain formidable, the government could quickly do a great deal to add paychecks and restore vigor to the economy. The magic trick would work like this: The government could start hiring people.

On Friday, as the Labor Department delivered its latest monthly snapshot of the anemic job market, two key facts underscored this prescription. The private sector added a modest 104,000 net jobs in October. That was not enough to absorb even new entrants to the job market, let alone cut deeply into the national unemployment rate, now at 9 percent. Yet it still amounted to welcome progress. During the same month, however, the government eliminated a net 24,000 jobs, heaping fresh woe on the economy. Most of those losses -- a net 20,000 -- were at the state level.

Whatever your political persuasion, does anyone out there seriously believe that state governments lack for important tasks to complete in the public interest? Yet most are now staring at gaping budget deficits and are cutting workers in an effort to square the books.

From California to Florida, classrooms are both packed and dilapidated, reflecting a need for more teachers and upgraded buildings. Roads and bridges are disintegrating through wear and neglect even as millions of construction workers remain jobless. The social service agencies that administer relief programs -- from unemployment benefits and job training to food stamps and emergency rental assistance -- are shedding workers even as demand for such help grows.

Okay, so that last one trips controversy, with some people clinging to the idea that when you hand a jobless person a check large enough to prevent them from, say, having to go dumpster-diving for dinner, you sweeten the joys of unemployment so much that they lose all interest in finding their way back to the workplace. Put that one aside, if you will. But who wants to fire cops, firefighters and school teachers? Who wants to stand in line longer at the department of motor vehicles, or spend more time waiting for commuter buses and trains because service is being cut? Who likes the feeling of running into a pothole at 60 miles an hour?

As state coffers continue to show the effects of the worst economic downturn since the Depression, the resulting budget shortfalls have reached staggering proportions. California could be looking at a deficit reaching $8 billion in its next budget year, according to the Sacramento Bee. New York confronts an anticipated $2 billion state budget shortfall (even as Gov. Andrew Cumo resists calls to increase taxes on millionaires).

In the state of Washington, the governor is now considering rolling back school bus service to address a $2 billion budget shortfall. Tennessee is contemplating cuts to the staff that handles applications for new driver's licenses, as it takes on a budget deficit reaching as large as $400 million...

Read more if you can stand it:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-s-goodman/government-jobs_b_1076310.html