GOP Attitude Toward Job Loss: “So Be It.”

by Stuart Shapiro

In response to a question about job losses resulting from proposed Republican budget cuts, Speaker Boehner said, “Since President Obama has taken office the federal government has added 200,000 new federal jobs, and if some of those jobs are lost in this, so be it.”  Aside from the “let them eat cake” attitude that has long been characteristic of the Republican leadership, Boehner’s numbers are flat out wrong.  Dana Milbank asked one expert about job losses under the Republican plan and got the following response.

the cuts – a net of $59 billion in the last half of fiscal 2011 – would lead to the loss of 650,000 government jobs, and the indirect loss of 325,000 more jobs as fewer government workers travel and buy things. That’s nearly 1 million jobs – possibly enough to tip the economy back into recession.

Add to that the facts that Boehner made up out of thin air the number of federal jobs that had been added (h/t Steve Benen) and that Boehner is opposing cutting unnecessary defense spending in his district (as Milbank notes) and it adds up to a Speaker that either doesn’t know what he’s talking about or one who cares little about budget deficits or jobs.

By: Stuart Shapiro

Stuart is a professor and the Director of the Public Policy
program at the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers
University. He teaches economics and cost-benefit analysis and studies
regulation in the United States at both the federal and state levels.
Prior to coming to Rutgers, Stuart worked for five years at the Office
of Management and Budget in Washington under Presidents Clinton and
George W. Bush.