Christopher Taylor explains why (in addition to the mere philosophical issues) Obama will have to resist any cuts to government spending:
In other words, to fix the debt, we have to lose jobs. To trim the debt down and reduce government spending to a sane and survivable level lots of federal jobs are going to be lost. That’s an inevitable consequence of the federal government bloat over the last few decades; lots of new jobs added, each costing money. When you cut the spending, jobs will be lost. And because a lot of that debt was created by adding new jobs, the direct and obvious solution is to snip those jobs away.
And it gets worse. Blacks are disproportionately represented in government jobs. In fact, hiring blacks in federal jobs is so out of norm with the general population that NASA has the smallest over representation by only hiring 49% more blacks than are in the general population. Blacks make up about 10% of the United States population, but make up about 20% of the federal government jobs according to a 2010 study by the Office of Personnel Management.
So we’re faced with a brutal dilemma: in order to lighten the pressure of the federal government on the economy and businesses so both can breathe and prosper, we’re going to have to slash the government down in size which will result in many people losing jobs in a time of dire unemployment. And many of those lost jobs will be black jobs.
Now, which politician wants to stand up and actually do that? Which politician will vote and fight to slash jobs and fire lots of black people? And if that actually somehow takes place, what exactly do you think will happen in the press and in black America? How do you think that will be portrayed by a media which already is incredibly hostile to the idea of cutting anything in the federal government?
H/T to Gerard Vanderleun for the link.
A much better game for the Vikings than last week, although the score somewhat flatters them. I think the game did provide lots of justification for not re-signing Tarvaris Jackson, who had a less-than-stellar game against his former team.
