Today’s New York Times editorial, “The Myth of Job Creation,” takes both President Obama and challenger Mitt Romney to task for their comments in the second debate about the importance of public-sector (government) jobs.
As the Times noted:
At the Iowa Policy Project, we have made this case repeatedly in Iowa over the last few years, both in response to cutbacks in Iowa budgets and to misinformed political assaults on federal stimulus spending, which did a good job bridging revenue gaps in Iowa to prevent worse cutbacks in public-sector spending. See our latest “Iowa JobWatch.”
In Iowa, 1 in 6 jobs is a government job, at the local, state or national level. How is it possible that roughly a quarter-million jobs in our state do not have an important impact on our economy? The answer of course is that they do. The lion’s share of those jobs are in local government, so they are scattered across the state. They are filled by our neighbors, buying goods and services from local businesses and keeping kids in our schools. As the Times notes, regarding comments by both presidential candidates suggesting that “government does not create jobs”:
Except that it does, millions of them — including teachers, police officers, firefighters, soldiers, sailors, astronauts, epidemiologists, antiterrorism agents, park rangers, diplomats, governors (Mr. Romney’s old job) and congressmen (like Paul Ryan).
As with shortsighted approaches in budgeting that attempt to resolve all deficit issues with spending cuts, instead of taking a balanced approach to both the spending and revenue sides of the budget ledger, our leaders make a mistake when they think all new jobs have to be in the private sector or they don’t matter. Public-sector spending feeds private industry, and creates new jobs in the private sector. To pretend otherwise is foolish.
It’s always good when a dose of fiscal and economic reality hits the public debate. But it is unfortunate that it doesn’t happen more often.
Posted by Mike Owen, Assistant Director
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