Deficit Reduction = Economic Non-Recovery
We (Americans) need to see this connection. It is direct.
Our employment situation sucks. It has sucked, it does suck, it will continue to suck.
People who say we are recovering, job-wise, are delusional or propagandists using some odd sense of the word "recovering" that does not mean what the dictionary says it means. The percentage of Americans working is not getting notably better. (That is not the same as the self-described percentage looking for work)
And the key sector of weakness in our "recovery" is public sector employment.
Our current mess is unique in that public employment is not leading us out of the depths, unlike all our other downturns, but is actually the worst sector. Month after month after year.
Why is public employment so weak?
Republicans want fewer unionized public sector workers, who tend to be Democrats. And that is a factor.
But the Big Elephant in the Room factor is concern about the federal deficit. The states, constrained by balanced budget requirements, couldn't really do much if they wanted to, and the Republican ones don't even want to.
The Federal Government needed to hire like crazy itself, and give money to the state's to hire more state workers.
That was prerequisite to recovery.
Why was it not done?
Republicans in Congress would not allow it, of course, ostensibly because it would increase the deficit, which is the correct economic move but for some fucking reason is considered a bad economic move, sometimes even by the damned President (!)
And the bipartisan (all of them, half of us) stupidity on the topic gave them, and gives them, cover. Nobody ever seems to say, "You can blow the deficit out your ass. I'm talking about getting people working," even though that would be the right view of the matter.
Jobs and the Deficit are not two separate issues. They are very closely entwined issues. The Deficit = Jobs. Cut the deficit in today's world and we are losing Jobs.
(Raising federal taxes on the rich to pay states to hire people would have an effect, but just borrowing the money would have even more effect and there is no compelling reason not to.)
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