Gingrich, Romney, Santorum & Paul: The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, here,
“Nonfarm payroll employment rose by 227,000 in February, and the unemployment rate was unchanged at 8.3 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Employment rose in professional and businesses services, health care and social assistance, leisure and hospitality, manufacturing, and mining.”
If nonfarm payroll rises by 227,000 (an annual rate of 2.7 million) why is the unemployment rate unchanged? Again, according to the BLS,
“Both the labor force and employment rose in February. The civilian labor force participation rate, at 63.9 percent, and the employment-population ratio, at 58.6 percent, edged up over the month. (See table A-1.)”
The reasons are simple:
- Obama brought troops 100,000 soldiers home from Iraq – who need jobs.
- The economy seems to be improving, prompting people to re-enter the job market.
- The “Public Sector” lost 22,000 jobs per month in 2011, for a total of 264,000.
These are summarized here, on Think Progress.org. We also lost 14,000 construction jobs last month because the Republicans refuse to rebuild the infrastructure of America.
What happens next? Again, according to ThinkProgress, here,
Mitt Romney,as president, would fire even more government workers. “We just have too many” public sector employees, Romney said, “and they’re paid too much.” Rick Santorum’s plan to cut $5 trillion in federal spending would undoubtedly lead to significantly higher government job losses.
Gingrich shut down the government once before. Altho he does want to build a lunar colony. Ron Paul wants to abolish every agency that exists, and basically return to the days immediately following the American Revolution, when the USA was 13 confederated states – before the Constitution was ratified. (Today I guess it would be 50 – or maybe 47, plus Alaska and Texas (but not including Hawaii). Governors Christie of NJ, Daniels of Indiana, Perry of Texas, and Walker of Wisconsin are reading from the same playbook as Romney and Paul.
ThinkProgress concludes:
It’s clear that even as the economic recovery continues, it will fall short of its full potential so long as governments continue to shed thousands of jobs. President Obama has proposed to address this problem by creating public sector jobs to repair our nation’s crumbling infrastructure. The Republican presidential candidates have proposed to address this problem by exacerbating it.
It is as if, now that the “Cold War” is over, the Republican Party is waging war against the United States of America.