For the last couple years the GOP has dropped down on bended knee and repeatedly chanted the mantra "We don't have a Revenue Problem, We have a Spending Problem" - while they have driven headlong toward the Debt Ceiling like a Suicide Bomber in a Dodge Charger with a trunk packed with C4.
At the same time they've done this they've also been quietly begging for Stimulus Cash to help local projects in their own communities and personally taken credit with big GIANT STIMULUS Checks that they themselves actually voted against when they had the chance.
People like Bobby Jindal.
But now Thinkprogress has generated statistical proof that states that have cut spending and refused to implement stimulus efforts have lost the most jobs.
We've heard similar austerity noises from Governor John Kasich:
Kasich stated, “We’re going to have to reduce spending. If we can control our spending and begin to innovate, as we have started, this will allow us to create a platform for economic growth.”
From Governor Chris Christie:
As I stood before you early last year, the good people of our state had been battered. We had lost 108,500 jobs in 2008 and another 121,000 in 2009. The unemployment rate was the highest in 33 years. Taxes were up, but revenues were down.
And even in that environment, government had made matters worse by spending too much. Contributing to our $11 billion projected deficit were commitments that were made over many years and never revisited, never reduced, and never reformed.
And of course so has Speaker John Beohner.
As the failed trillion dollar stimulus proved, increased government spending did not create the millions of jobs promised and only added to our record-breaking deficits and over $14 trillion in debt. The new projection that this year’s deficit will reach nearly $1.5 million only reinforces the need to cut up Washington’s credit cards once and for all.
That is why I have been proud to support many measures that have come before the House that will rein in out of control government spending and help put Central and Southside Virginia on a true path towards a long-lasting economy recovery.
Unfortunately for Jindal, Kasich, Christie and Boehner - Government Spending has helped Job Growth, not hindered it.
From the start of the Great Recession in December 2007 through the end of 2010, 24 states have cut government spending by an average of 7.5 percent after adjusting for inflation. Another 25 states have expanded government outlays by an average of 11 percent. (The analysis excludes Alabama due to data problems reported by the National Association of State Budget Offices). And the differences in these states’ economic performance could not be more self-evident. Relative to national economic trends, states that increased spending enjoyed on average:
0.2 percentage point decrease in the unemployment rate
1.4 percent increase in private employment
0.5 percent real economic growth since the start of the recession
In contrast, states that cut spending saw on average
1 percentage point increase in the unemployment rate
2.1 percent loss of private employment
2.9 percent real economic contraction relative to the national economic trend
Steep state spending cuts have gone hand-in-hand with rising unemployment rates, falling private-sector payroll employment, and lower growth in state’s gross domestic product, or GDP — the sum of all goods and services produced by labor and equipment in each state, less imports.
Take private sector jobs, for example. This graph shows that state spending is not just about jobs for public service workers, but also has far reaching consequences for private businesses and their workers. The downward sloping red line shows the relationship between cuts to state spending and changes in private sector employment relative to the national average since the start of the Great Recession. States that cut spending are seeing significantly more job losses in the private sector than states maintaining or increasing spending levels. For every 10 percent cut in state spending, state economies lost 1.6 percent of their private-sector jobs.
As we all know politics can make some people chronically fact-challenged, but as the evidence continues even the most fervent tax-cut cultist eventually has to realize that they have been sold a bottle of snake oil by their high priests.
Vyan