Creating government jobs is the fool’s gold of stimulating economic growth. You can’t lift a bucket while standing in it, just as you can’t produce sustainable private sector activity by focusing your concern on 14 percent of the workforce.
But that’s precisely what President Obama is doing. Recently, EAGnews produced a short animation looking at the differences between the “government class” and the private-sector “producer class” in Wisconsin. It found the 14 percent (government employees) have it much better than the 86 percent private sector workforce that’s propping up the Government Class. It stated in part:
“The government class plays by a different set of rules, dictated by unions and implemented by the politicians they help elect. For government union members, income is not determined by job performance, but by how many years they’ve managed to stick around. They’ll work fewer hours, get more vacation time, and make more money than their producer class colleagues. They’ll get better health coverage, and it’ll cost them less. The government class will retire at an earlier age and with a pension providing a guaranteed income, something fewer than 1 in 10 producer-class workers enjoy.”
This is President Obama’s formula for economic success – produce more government jobs and try to claim an economic recovery.
Is this their campaign strategy du jour ? To make the argument that Romney refuses to grow the size of government? If we learned anything in Wisconsin, it’s that voters appreciate leaders who take a bold stand in reining in the cost of government by making it more efficient while, in fact, not laying off teachers or other employees. That seems to be a winning formula – not the Obama/Biden strategy of just mindlessly spending more money to boost a few statistics.
The president's jobs plan is great for the public sector unions, which have endorsed and are funding his re-election campaign. But what about the other 86 percent of us? Don’t worry, because President Obama has assured us we’re obviously doing fine.