Barack Obama, Austerity President

[mountain_hiker]

I hope all of those Republicans who claim that this administration spends too much sees this article. Of course, I suppose it can be claimed that the Republican-controlled House was partly responsible, too. There are charts in the linked article.

Barack Obama, Austerity PresidentImagine an alternate reality where the first term of President

Comments

[hammersxstrings]

see, your problem though, is you're throwing all these fact thingys at them, and they just don't know what to do with those. they gotta go with their gut, and their guts tell them he's a kenyan muslim out to kill babies and take all your money for people who don't want to pay for their student loans

i think i may have some repressed issues here.

[mountain_hiker]

LOL

[doverz]

Wow, that made no sense at all.

[polietics]

In the UK we're fighting the opposite battle - austerity that's choking recovery. I guess it's because the USA had a way smaller state employment to begin with that there hasn't been a massive outcry as over here.

[baked_goldfish]

I guess it's because the USA had a way smaller state employment to begin with that there hasn't been a massive outcry as over here.

The austerity measures are a problem over here as well - government job losses are a huge factor in the meager net gains from month to month over the last three years, and many gains are in spite of and not because of austerity - but the complicating factor is less the overall size of government being small, and more that it's happening on a state and local level. If Minnesota loses 5,000 state/local government jobs in a given month, Massachusetts won't notice or be affected in any direct way. Federal job losses have been relatively minor compared to state and local (and federal employment affects Virginia, DC and Maryland more than any other states, and VA and MD have been doing pretty well comparatively).

So it's like, the job losses in government are big, but they're so decentralized and generally not federal, so the national media doesn't really connect the dots that well.

[windy_lea]

Thanks for detailing this. The article gave me a general idea, but this sort of... put things in focus?

[baked_goldfish]

No problem. It's one of those things that's under-reported in the US, but when you go back and look at the BLS numbers on job losses by sector, the state/local government numbers are wildly scary.

[fenris_lorsrai]

The town I live in actually just voted overwhelming to buy a huge chunk of land as open space since they could get such a good bond rate. The owner was willing to sell at about 1/3 the going rate and it fit into the middle of several smaller chunks so rather than just being 27 acres, it joins up to the other pieces to make a sprawling 184 acres. It basically looks like the center of an ink splatter as the rest of the open space was largely along watercourses radiating from there.

There was really only about two people that spoke against buying it since the bond rates were so low. It couldn't have come up for sale at a better time.

[dawn9476]

This is why we are not growing as fast as we could be. If we were not shedding government jobs at such a fast rate, the unemployment rate would be a lot lower.

[tmlforsyth]

Obama should seek the Republican nomination, with these stats. He's already more fiscally conservative than George W. Bush, though that is a low bar to set. No one gives him any credit.

[jaded110]

Would be the first time I voted for a republican. :/