Public-Sector Jobs And The Recession

Wonder what you would find if you frisked private-sector and public-sector jobs?

Answer: Public-sector jobs have been “relatively sheltered” from the recession.

I know this is not a shocker, but I feel that everyone needs to be reminded of this time-to-time. The Michigan Capitol Confidential reports:

While the national recession killed private-sector jobs, the government jobs have been “relatively sheltered,” says one researcher.

Veronique de Rugy, a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, says the private sector has lost 6 percent of its January 2008 workforce, or 7.2 million jobs, as of November 2010.

Yet, federal jobs increased 3.5 percent by 98,000 jobs during that same time span. And de Rugy says those increases don’t include all the census workers that were hired temporarily. At its peak, the government had hired about 600,000 census workers.

State government jobs nationwide have seen a 1 percent increase with 42,000 more jobs from January 2008 to November 2010.

The only municipal jobs loser was “local government,” which lost 1.7 percent of its jobs, or 258,000 jobs, from January 2008 to November 2010.

Personally, we should require all public-sector employees, on average, to have wages and benefits that are within 3 percent of those comparable skills in the private-sector. Also, as I have pointed out before, the people over at The Heritage Foundation have a few other solutions that would address this issue:

• Abolish the general schedule and implement performance-based pay.
• Hire more private contractors.
• Reduce federal benefits.
• End dismissal restrictions.

Of course these solutions are not popular with the powerful and greedy organized labor unions. In the end, it will be a fight if we are going to be serious about tackling this problem.

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A New Study Shows That Obama-Care Will Destroy 700,000 Jobs

Wonder what you would find if you frisked the latest study regarding President Obama’s health-care bill?

Answer: Obama-Care will destroy 700,000 jobs by 2019!

Oops! It looks like House Speaker Nancy Pelsoi’s (D-CA) numbers were a little bit off a few weeks ago at the Obama-Care summit. I guess it’s just another common mistake made by the Democratic Party and the organizations that fund their progressive/liberal agenda. All I have to say is: Please try again.

According to a new study conducted by Americans for Tax Reform and the Beacon Hill Institute, the current Obama-Care bill that Congress plans on voting on this weekend will destroy jobs… NOT create them. Hot Air has an exclusive first look at the BHI executive summary that will be available later on today:

Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, has urged passage of the massive health reform plan moving through Congress as a way to create up to 400,000 jobs.  Speaker Pelosi bases her claim on a report by the Center for American Progress (CAP) in which the Center estimates that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) would create 250,000 to 400,000 jobs per year over 10 years.

This estimate by CAP amounts to a hurried effort to add academic heft to the claim that national health care reform offers a collateral benefit in the form of an economic “stimulus.” It turns out, however, that its methodology, stripped of unsupportable claims about savings in health care costs, shows just the opposite of what CAP intended. PPACA is a job killer, not a job creator.

Using the CAP methodology, we find that the bill would destroy a total of 120,000 to 700,000 jobs by 2019, a far cry from the number suggested by leading advocates.

CAP’s claim about job creation rests on its assumption that various developments ensuing from passage of the bill – upgrades in medical technology, the promotion of preventive care and the reduction in administrative costs – would save $683 billion over ten‐years and thus set in motion new incentives for firms to create jobs. The trouble is that the claimed costs savings are at odds with estimates from both Congress and the Executive Branch, which, together, are responsible for considering and ultimately implementing the legislation.

There is no evidence that the projected savings proposed by the Obama administration, particularly in areas such as preventive care, would ever materialize. The literature cited by proponents is speculative at best. Also, there is no guarantee that the administration would be successful in lowering insurance premiums while expanding coverage, without limiting access to health care.  …

Once we dismiss purported cost savings such as the proposed Medicare cuts, the job gains produced by the CAP methodology become job losses. We  utilized the same econometric model used by the CAP authors to derive employment effects of PPACA, but with the unsupportable costs savings stripped from the model. We provide two estimates:

1. The first estimate applies the CAP methodology to the CMS estimate that the PPACA would increase national health expenditures by $24.8 billion over the baseline case by 2019. This estimate shows that PPACA would kill 120,000 jobs by 2019.
2. The second estimate applies the CAP methodology to a scenario in which we begin with the CMS estimate but in addition eliminate the $437 billion in Medicare cuts assumed by CAP and then factor in an additional $70 billion in discretionary spending that the CBO indicated would take place under the Bill. The addition of these figures would increase national health expenditures by $148.8 billion in 2019 and thus kill 700,000 jobs by 2019.

Honestly… How much proof do you need that socialized health-care is NOT the answer? Better yet, how much proof do you need that larger government is NOT the answer?

It’s really quite simple: The pubic sector doesn’t create jobs… It is the private sector that creates the jobs and basically provides the public sector with the money they use/need.

Please feel free to show your support…

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One Year Anniversary Of The Stimulus Package

Unfortunately, happy birthday.

Wonder what you would find if you frisked what went on in Washington D.C. one year ago today?

Answer: President Obama signed the record $787 billion Democratic Stimulus Bill.

Of course that price tag has increased to $862 billion since then. Figures… When does the federal government (including the CBO) ever calculate their predictions correctly?

Over a year ago, President Obama promised America that he would create (not save) 3.5 million jobs by the end of 2010. The result: We have lost almost 3 million jobs. It is baffling to hear the President give so many altered messages relating to how the stimulus package has been a success. You can get an idea of what I am talking about by watching the video posted above.

Hey, remember when President Obama and his administration promised this:

Granted, the unemployment rate now stands at 9.7 percent, but the only reason it is not even higher is that millions of Americans have left the workforce altogether.

But enough with the negatives! Let’s look at the bright side… At least none of the stimulus money is being wasted. Wait a minute:

• Top 10 Wasteful Earmarks In Stimulus Bill
• Steven Crowder Searches For His Stimulus Money
• Stimulus Money Goes To Nonexistent Congressional Districts
• Stimulus Money Goes To Nonexistent Zip Codes
• ‘Green’ Stimulus Jobs Going To China
• CBS Questions The Number of Jobs “Saved or Created”
• Stimulus Money Ends Up Going To Convicts!

And last, but not least:

• Stimulus Money Goes Toward A Porno/Horror Film Involving A Gorilla

Please don’t make me continue…

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY STIMULUS PACKAGE!

*UPDATE* – February 18, 2010

House Republican Whip Eric Cantor released an interesting stimulus package  timeline (PDF) and here are just a few of the ‘shaky’ milestones chosen by Karl from Hot Air:

February 17, 2009: The nation’s first Recovery Act project is announced, a new bridge in Tuscumbia, MO. CNN later reports on “A New ‘Bridge to Nowhere’.”

April 13, 2009:The Administration announces the 2,000th Recovery Act project, but an ABC News fact check reveals that far fewer projects are actually underway, and may not come in under budget as claimed.

May 27, 2009: President Obama marks the 100 day anniversary of the Recovery Act by claiming that 150,000 jobs have been saved or created. Politifact calls this “not much better than a guess presented as a fact.”

July 27, 2009: Congressional Democrats claim highway and transit spending from the stimulus has created or sustained 48,000 jobs. ProPublica says “the estimate suffers from what’s become a common malaise in the stimulus world: fuzzy math.” ProPublica found “a reliance on raw head counts — which tend to inflate the numbers by giving full- and part-time jobs the same weight — and by counting the same workers two, three or four times.”

October 15, 2009: The administration announces that contracts awarded with Recovery Act funds have created or saved 30,383 jobs. The Associated Press found “some counts were more than 10 times as high as the actual number of jobs; some jobs credited to the stimulus program were counted two and sometimes more than four times; and other jobs were credited to stimulus spending when none was produced.”

October 30, 2009: The administration announces that the Recovery Act has saved or created 640,329 total jobs. On November 19, the Administration admits that they cannot confirm their claim.

December 18, 2009: The Administration sends out a memo saying they will no longer count jobs “created or saved,” but instead count jobs funded in whole or in part by the Recovery Act. But they brought it back in the most recent report from Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers.

Can someone say: P.R. disaster?

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Sen. Bayh (D-IN): Democrats Have Yet To Create A Single Private-Sector Job

Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN).

Wonder what you would find if you frisked CBS News’ interview with U.S. Senator Evan Bayh (D-IN) this morning?

Answer: Apparently, Sen. Bayh doesn’t believe the Democrat’s stimulus package has created a single private-sector job.

OUCH! Talk about going out with a bang! Haha. If you watch the video clip I posted above, you will hear Sen. Bayh say:

If I could create one job in the private sector by helping to grow a business, that would be one more than Congress has created in the last six months.

Even if Sen. Bayh is trying to be tricky with his wording by using the phrase “the last six months,” it still seems pretty clear that he has jumped on the bandwagon that 94% of American voters are on:

Poor President Obama… Americans are not buying his “saved or created” 2 million jobs that he just announced last month.

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‘Green’ Stimulus Jobs Going To China

Wonder what you would find if you frisked $2 billion of the stimulus money meant to go towards wind power?

Answer: 80% of it is going to foreign companies.

You have got to be kidding me! ABC News reports:

Despite all the talk of green jobs, the overwhelming majority of stimulus money spent on wind power has gone to foreign companies, according to a new report by the Investigative Reporting Workshop at the American University’s School of Communication in Washington, D.C.

Nearly $2 billion in money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act has been spent on wind power, funding the creation of enough new wind farms to power 2.4 million homes over the past year. But the study found that nearly 80 percent of that money has gone to foreign manufacturers of wind turbines.

Click the photograph below to watch ABC News’ report:

Jim Hoft – from Gateway Pundit – points out some interesting numbers:

US workers may be laid off but a Chinese company is helping build a massive wind farm in west Texas. The firm will receive $450 million in Stimulus cash. The project will save or create 300 jobs in Texas and 2,000 manufacturing jobs in China. That sounds like a good use of taxpayer dollars, huh?

In the end, large government is extremely inefficient and it’s baffling to think that people actually want to put their faith in it. Honestly, can we consider this $800+ billion stimulus package a complete failure yet? It has done nothing to “stimulate” the economy and what the hell is a “saved” job!? How do you calculate that?

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Obama Refers To Himself 132 Times In One Speech About JOBS

How about another "I"?

Wonder what you would find if you frisked President Obama’s jobs speech that he made last week in Ohio?

Answer: He referred to himself a whopping 132 times in one speech.

HAHA! Wow…

Hmm? You would think that a jobs speech would be about the American people and getting the economy back on the right track. Think again folks… Apparently, it’s just another moment for the Messiah’s towering intellect and ego to shine.

Props to Americans For Prosperity for this video.

Side-Note: This video reminds me of Toby Keith’s “I Wanna Talk About Me.” I wonder why that is? Haha.

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Frisk A Liberal’s Daily Catch Up (1-4-2009)

Wonder what you would find if you frisked the stories online that I didn’t have time to cover on Frisk A Liberal?

Answer:

1. Jobs, Jobs, Jobs… Obama’s Biggest Failure In 2009 (Video)
2. Video: The obligatory “Brit advises Tiger Woods to convert to Christianity” clip
3. Video: I’m okay, says Rush
4. The 40 Most Obnoxious Quotes of 2009
5. $57,000 From Sarah’s Jacket
6. Joker-ized Senators Are Growing (More Coming Soon)

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Half Of Detroit’s Workers Are Unemployed

Wonder what you would find if you frisked Detroit’s real unemployment rate?

Answer: Not looking good… Whatsoever!

Depressing, or should I say depression:

Despite an official unemployment rate of 27 percent, the real jobs problem in Detroit may be affecting half of the working-age population, thousands of whom either can’t find a job or are working fewer hours than they want.

Using a broader definition of unemployment, as much as 45 percent of the labor force has been affected by the downturn.

And that doesn’t include those who gave up the job search more than a year ago, a number that could exceed 100,000 potential workers alone.

Officially, the unemployment rate in Detroit was estimated at 27 percent in October. But that number does not include people working part-time who want full-time work, nor does it include “discouraged” workers, who have stopped looking for work. It also doesn’t include people who have gone back to school rather than search for a job.

As some of you might know, Michigan is my home state and I find this absolutely astonishing/depressing. I don’t know any concrete ideas that could possibly start to revitalize Detroit, but I do know that it needs jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, more jobs, and possibly a little more jobs.

Also, what a coincidence… Steven Crowder just recently visited Detroit to shoot his next comedic video for PJ TV. Check out the trailer for “Rockin’ In Detroit”:

We must…

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