Well, let's look at the GOP's messaging so far on this..... Yes, the sequester is bad and it will cause economic damage but it's the only way Washington might cut spending so we're going to go ahead and push for it, but it was Obama's idea. That's a losing message. End of story.

True, American Tea-libanites are a lot like cockroaches, just not as easy to look at.

This is so awesome. I thought for sure Dems would lose the senate in '14 but with all this help from Republicans those chances are looking better every day. Between the 15 slugs that sent the letter asking Obama to withdraw Hagel and this clown going so far as a fillibuster a nominee. I just wish some of the Teafools in the House would get some impeachment proceedings going. That would pretty much seal the deal for Dems.

He'll need the Medicaid dollars to have a prayer of actually creating those 250k jobs he promised in his first term. How's he doing so far? Somewhere around 25k in two years. Way to go Walker (lolz). http://www.politifact.com/wisconsin/statements/2012/dec/16/scott-walker/gov-scott-walker-says-wisconsin-has-created-almost/

Karl Rove is betting they'll win without you. Focus groups being conducted by Republican pollsters are backing up Rove's ideas. Face it, Republicans will shed NO tears to see you go. If we're lucky maybe Walker will get unstupid here in WI and do some Medicaid expanding too huh?

The Supreme Court settled that argument over 70 years ago. Try keeping up next time. The Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work and then they get elected and prove it. - P.J. O'Rourke

Per your BLS link.... All Govt employees: Jan 2009: 22,471,000 Dec 2012: 21,917,000 Fed employees: Jan 2009: 2,789,000 Dec 2012: 2,796,000 Ok, there are roughly 7000 more fed employees (seasonally adjusted, number is lower if you use non-seasonally adjusted) employees.

Example, let's use 2009 since that's a year we keep discussing... 2009 (Jan)131627 (Feb)131387 (Mar)131249 (Apr)131429 (May)131697 (Jun)131510 (Jul)129910 (Aug)129786 (Sept)130144 (Oct)130741 (Nov)130787 (Dec)130242 (Annual)130876 average the 12 months and you get 130875.75. Seems suspiciously close to the 130876 number that's in the annual column doesn't it? Plus for your theory to be correct you're saying that somehow 600k jobs appeared between the Dec number and the "annual" number. While Obama has created jobs, no single month has hit anything like 600k jobs.

The "total" at the end (in the annual column) is an average. Add the numbers up and look for yourself.

For Marie150's benefit, it's worth noting that there are fewer federal employees now than there were in 2009 as well. Afraid you'd have to look to Reagan or George W. Bush to see large increases in federal employment. Point being that despite your insistence the jobs numbers aren't being inflated with govt jobs.

Psydoc: Here are the Total non-farm payroll numbers from 2009 to current (seasonally adjusted). There is no annual number. There is an annual column that gets filled in on the non-seasonally adjusted spreadsheet with the average for the year. This number is calculated by taking the average of the 12 months. Note that Jan 2009 is smaller than any recent #. 2009 133631 132936 132106 131402 131050 130578 130227 130017 129784 129614 129593 129373 2010 129360 129320 129474 129703 130224 130094 130008 129971 129928 130156 130300 130395 2011 130464 130660 130865 131169 131284 131493 131571 131703 131928 132094 132268 132498 2012 132809 133080 133285 133397 133522 133609 133762 133927 134065 134225 134472 134668(P) 2013 134825(P)