Now, first of all: hey, isn't it interesting that our three recent recessions started under Republican presidents? No. Recessions are going to happen. Clinton was lucky in that he had one end right before he became president, and the next one started right after he left, but if you shifted his term a year or two forward or backward, he would have had a recession start in his term, and if you combined a shift back of a couple of years and he had a third term then two recessions would have started during his term. Obama hasn't had a recession start during his term because we haven't even had a real recovery from the last one even after most of his term is over. And all the other presidents since Reagan took office where Republicans.
At any rate, the chart shows you that in all those bleak periods, while the private sector was draining jobs, the public sector was gaining jobs. As it has almost all the time, except during major military cut backs.
Even if they're sincere about smaller government, which is open to question in many cases, but even if they are, they understand enough about economics to know that a person working and making $50,000 is doing more for the economy than a person not working. Not Necessarily. A job is a cost. When its a government job its a cost to the tax payer and thus to the private sector economy. If the work done on the job produces more benefit than the cost, then you get a net gain, but you get the gain from what is produced, not just because someone gets $50k in direct deposits pulled from the tax payers. |
