Private-sector jobs slowly returning, but being dragged down by rising government layoffs

[dtotire]

Conservative Republicans have long clamored for government downsizing. They're starting to get it _ by default


Crippled by plunging tax revenues, state and local governments have shed over a half million jobs since the recession began in December 2007. And, after adding jobs early in the downturn, the federal government is now cutting them as well.

States cut 49,000 jobs over the past year and localities 210,000, according to an analysis of Labor Department statistics. There are 30,000 fewer federal workers now than a year ago _ including 5,300 Postal Service jobs canceled last month.

By contrast, private-sector jobs have increased by 1.6 million over the past 12 months. But the state, local and federal job losses have become a drag on efforts to nudge the nation's unemployment rate down from its painfully high 9.1 percent.

The economy has been expanding, at least modestly, since the middle of 2009. And state and local governments are usually engines of job growth during recoveries. But not now, said economist Heidi Shierholz of the labor-aligned Economic Policy Institute.

"The public sector didn't start to lose jobs right away. But then it did as the budget crunch really hit. State governments are not allowed to run deficits. So the private sector is expanding while the public sector is shedding jobs _ to the tune of 35,000 jobs a month," she said


more:
http://www.newser.com/article/d9qiqr680/private-sector-jobs-slowly-returning-but-being-dragged-down-by-rising-government-layoffs.html

[annabanana]

1. We may be about to find out what it's like for the Government to be small enough

to be drowned in a bathtub:

[unblock]

2. when they say the want smaller government, they actually mean fewer civil servants

they are the party of corruption, and once upon a time the federal government had a form of corruption known as "patronage", whereby vast numbers of federal employees were fired wholesale and replaced with political supporters as favors and payback.

the 1939 "hatch act" put an end to that and created civil servants who could not be fired on a politician's whim.

this, of course, cut down on the corrupt value of office, so natually republicnas hate it.



the call to "downsize" government isn't reducing government POWER or even government SPENDING. it's actually all about reducing government EMPLOYEES so that governmntal duties are performed by private contractors instead -- and HEY, guess what! that means that politicians can once again return to the days of patronage and throw government contracts to political supporters as favors and payback!

hatch act circumvented!

:grr: