Despite all evidence to the contrary, President Obama and his like-minded defenders in office and in the media continue to peddle the "government jobs can repair the economy" nonsense. Here's Sen. Sherrod Brown:
Everybody knows that government creates jobs,” Brown said, citing the highway bill that has passed the Senate but is bottled up in the GOP-controlled House, which Dems say would create hundreds of thousands of jobs.
“Government creates jobs in highways,” Brown said. “We hire private contractors. That creates other jobs. It builds an economic foundation for job creation.”
Columnist Mona Charen wrote a column a few days ago that gives one of the most succinct explanations I've seen about why this just isn't so:
Government hiring may be necessary, but the idea that it is stimulative is perverse. In order to hire a teacher or a diversity specialist or a tax collector, the government must extract money from taxpayers to pay their salaries. The sum total of water in the pool does not increase when you scoop water from one end and pour it into the other. If the government worker is inefficient or incompetent, you are subtracting from the total water level. The Keynesian "multiplier" has been shown to be an illusion.
Same deal with that "private contrator" with the job on the highway. What he does may be necessary, and the money he's paid is certainly important to him, he's still paid with tax money so there's no increase in the pool's sum total.
