JONATHAN CHAIT DECEMBER 29, 2010
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A couple weeks ago, Tim Pawlenty accused President Obama of creating a massive upsurge in government jobs while private sector job growth has dwindled:
{G]overnment, which, thanks to President Obama, has become the only booming "industry" left in our economy. Since January 2008 the private sector has lost nearly eight million jobs while local, state and federal governments added 590,000.
Paul Krugman pointed out that this was totally false. Government employment has fallen. Pawlenty was citing a figure from June, but even that reflected a temporary spike due to Census hiring, not anything Obama did:
That spike from last year parallels the 2000 Census-related employment spike. So Pawlenty was using a number that was no longer true, and was deeply misleading even during the brief window when it was, in order to support a false claim about Obama's record of government jobs.
Now Veronique de Rugy -- whose post for Andrew Breitbart turns out to be the source of Pawlenty's false data -- goes after Krugman with a new post at National Review. I realize that interceding on Krugman's behalf in an intellectual spat with Veronique de Rugy is a bit like Nato sending troops to aid the American invasion of Grenada. But the sheer comedy of de Rugy's argument makes me unable to resist. She writes:
Of course, we can argue over how much the government grew during the recession or whether Obama is technically responsible for the shrinkage or growth of some or all parts of government. However, it is reasonable to say that, in contrast to the private sector, government employees have been relatively sheltered since January 2008: Only a small portion of local governments’ workforce lost their jobs and federal and state employment grew. It is also reasonable to say that for almost a year-and-a-half, while the private sector was shrinking, the government was growing. These are the points I think governor Pawlenty was trying to make.
Nothing in this passage, or in any part of her post (read it!) contradicts anything Krugman wrote. She leaves untouched the fact that he cited a statistic that was not true, and that even during the brief period when it was true, his interpretation of it (Obama created lots of government jobs) was completely false. Instead she argues that Pawlenty "was trying to make" the case that government jobs shrunk less rapidly than private sector jobs. If Pawlenty actually wrote this, which he didn't, it would be a meaningful point if there were some fixed pool of unemployment, and any new government job subtracts a private sector job, which of course is not true, either. She also writes that Pawlenty was "trying" (without evident success) to make the point that at one time government employment had risen while private employment had fallen. Apparently somebody hacked into his computer to add the implication that this resulted from Obama's insatiable thirst for big government rather than the decennial Census that he had no role in authorizing.
16 comments
JC, repeat after me: Republicans lie. If commentators like you called them on their lies, calling them liars as Al Franken did, then maybe, just maybe, they'd quit lying.
- tnmats
December 29, 2010 at 3:09pm
Mats: I think that Chait is calling out de Rugy and Pawlenty. If I were in court, and my opposing counsel had so thoroughly eviscerated my argument as to expose me as a total fraud, which is what I believe Chait did to de Rugy and Pawlenty, I would slink away in shame. However, if the judge sanctioned my misbehavior by accepting my position, I may, were I corrupt and morally weak, puff-out my chest and strut out of the courtroom. I do not know de Rugy, but I am long observer of Pawlenty (I live in Minnesota and we have numerous mutual friends). He is not stupid. His was not a mistake of fact, it was a flat out lie, and Jonathon pointed that out. Pawlenty has persistently gotten away with, and even been rewarded for, lying to the voters. Journalists and bloggers, even those as well-respected as Chait with TNR as a forum (you can add Krugman and the NYT as well) will not stop the Republicans from lying. The Republicans will not quit lying until voters rise-up and strike them down for their lies. And until that happens, we (the U.S. as a society, TNR readers are just along for the ride on this one) will get the government we deserve. All we can do in the interim is continue to point out the lies, and the lying liars who tell them, and hope it eventually sinks in.
- spd1955
December 29, 2010 at 3:58pm
You have to destroy their brains, people! Don't you know anything?
- janus
December 29, 2010 at 4:00pm
- Very soon Republicans will assume the burden of calling each other liars. The calling out will begin when six or twelve candidates decide to run Primary '12 Inc. and steal the spotlight from the House majority. Two years of unity was easy because not one person in the GOP was truly competing for a national role. FOX, Rush, the mob on the right and anyone who can cash-in during the next 18 months realize conflict brings more dollars until a candidate is nominated. Ask Sarah if being perceived as a front runner has brought her more or less praise than she reaped from her side compared to a year ago? As the GOP attempts to find a path to 2012 and leaders beyond we will see plenty of sharp elbows not aimed at Mr. Obama. They have a lot to do before he's their main problem and a good share of dollars and energy will be targeted upon each other. That's how the business works.
- michaelg
December 29, 2010 at 4:21pm
Michael - well spoken
- Tristan
December 29, 2010 at 5:45pm
Chait wrong again -- and Krugman. Use the wrong data set -- typical liberal analysis. Does anyone hear possess the faintest of critical reasoning skills? It is true that Federal Gov has increased..... ...The USGOVT series include all Gov workers. This is not the relevant measure since this includes state and local government workers who are not controlled by federal appropriations/Obama and who have fared poorly in the downturn. The relevant measure is federal employment ex postal service, which is only available from BLS, not FRED. This shows a 6.3% increase since January 2008, from 2.06 million to 2.19 million. Far better than private sector. That 6.3% growth does not reflect the Census Bureau's temporary employment but an actual increase in the size of the government. Does being liberal mean you have a cognitive defect?
- mr_rationale
December 29, 2010 at 5:55pm
Oh dear GAWD Rat, Did you read what Pawlenty said? He said "local state, and Federal governments added 590,000 jobs." Besides they are all parasites anyway, right? Now please go slink off and come back later as you usually do when made to look foolish.
- MikeB.
December 29, 2010 at 6:30pm
As was said on here SPD, the facts are not important. Pawlenty is smart enough to know that. It is the narrative that is important. You can't let facts get in the way of a good story. An ever increasing guv-a-ment as we go on the road to Moscow is a narrative that scares the hell out of old people who miss that old Cold War paranoia and get their fix from Glenn Beck. They vote in GOP Presidential primaries.
- MikeB.
December 29, 2010 at 6:33pm
This from a poster called Joeb, location Washington, in the response thread to Krugman's column in the NYT: "This is not the relevant measure since this includes state and local government workers who are not controlled by federal appropriations and who have fared poorly in the downturn. The relevant measure is federal employment ex postal service, which is only available from BLS, not FRED. This shows a 6.3pct increase since January 2008, from 2.06 million to 2.19 million. That growth does not reflect the Census Bureau's temporary employment but an actual increase in the size of the government." Add in some name-calling and adolescent posturing, and you have mr_rationale's post above. Interesting.
- ironyroad
December 29, 2010 at 6:40pm
"Does being liberal mean you have a cognitive defect?" Cognitive defects are a disease of the conservative mind. Habitual lying is the other defect of they have too. Toss in stupidity and you've got the trifecta of what afflicts them all.
- tnmats
December 29, 2010 at 8:40pm
Irony, you say this "Joeb" is in Washington; it would be ironic (no pun intended) if he/she/it is a government worker, or better still, a lobbyist shill.
- tnmats
December 29, 2010 at 8:42pm
Tnmats, it seems to me that, unlike seattleeng and a couple of the other conservatives who show up here, rationale has very little personality. The tone of shrill venom could be adopted by anyone, and his/her posts tend to consist of either cutting and pasting material from elsewhere or inventing notions and terms that have really no meaning. "Mr_rationale" could indeed be someone employed in the DC area to troll liberal discussion boards and blogs and post identical (non-)arguments. It's kinda clumsy, however, to repost a commentary from the discussion thread of the very linked article under discussion here.
- ironyroad
December 29, 2010 at 9:25pm
of course Mr. Rat ignores that one of the purposes of the stimulus was transfer payments to states to keep people employed so even though it was Obama's intent for state and local employment to stay steady the depth of the recession didn't even allow that to happen.
- blackton
December 29, 2010 at 10:36pm
Meanwhile, Bush had a dismal record in generating private sector jobs, and it doesn't surprise me. If you lower the tax rate on capital gains and dividends as Bush II did, you disincentivise investors away from small business type investments and into portfolio income which is taxed at a significantly lower rate. If, as they say, that small businesses are the job creators, then Bush's record is predictable from the day he lowered the rates on capital gains and dividends.
- Nusholtz
December 29, 2010 at 11:40pm
"You have to destroy their brains, people! Don't you know anything?" Trying, but we can't find any! Anyway, how can public-sector jobs grow faster than private-sector ones? Everyone knows the public sector can't create jobs. But even if it could, I'm sure the American people wouldn't stand for that sort of thing. "No thanks," they'd say; "I'd rather stay on unemployment than become a public-sector parasite."
- frippo
December 30, 2010 at 1:44pm
Exactly, irony. That is why I have proposed that "rationale" is a badly written software program confected by the newest, youngest, rawest staffer at Heritage.
- liberal reformer
December 30, 2010 at 2:17pm