Governments bled hundreds of thousands of jobs after the U.S. economic recovery started. Now they're preparing to pass the knife around again as the federal budget comes under pressure.
The cuts in the public-sector workforce—at the federal, state and local levels—marked the deepest retrenchment in government employment of civilians since just after World War II. About 21.8 million civilians were directly employed by a government in the U.S. in February, accounting for roughly one out of every six nonfarm payroll jobs, according to the Labor Department. That is down by about 740,000 jobs since the recession ended in June 2009. At the same time, the private sector has added more than 5.2 million jobs over the course of the recovery.States build cash reserves, raising rainy-day debate. WSJ is reporting:
Now, with revenue rebounding along with housing values and employment, most states are breaking even or running small surpluses. Several state governors are moving to replenish or even boost their cash reserves, stirring debate about whether the money should be used instead to cut taxes or spent to save jobs and spur the economy.But the dems always have an answer:
Michigan state Rep. Brandon Dillon, a Grand Rapids Democrat, said the money should instead be used to restore school funding, which was cut early in the governor's term, despite severe crowding in schools. His 10th-grade stepdaughter's English class has 46 students, he said. Nearly a fifth of the schools in his district are set to be closed this year to cut expenses, he said."We are not funding education at any level at an adequate level," Mr. Dillon said. "Before we start putting hundreds of millions of dollars in a rainy-day fund, we should first be meeting the basic commitments." And if we run out of money, we can just increase taxes on the rich. And if we really get ourselves into debt because we don't have a rainy-day fund, we can always count on a bailout.
By the way, here are the state rankings on public school funding (at the link, click on the PDF file near the top of the page). Michigan does rank near the bottom, in "revenue per student in average daily attendance, 2010 - 11, Michigan ranked #46 of the 57 states (President Obama's methodology), below Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and Arizona, but ahead of Nevada, #51. [My daughter says Detroit, MI, probably brings down the averages, but still; below Alabama and Mississippi?]
Book review, A skeptical modern; Adam Ferguson in the Scottish Enlightenment, Iain McDaniel. Obviously I haven't read the book yet, but the book might make a nice companion to How The Scots Invented the World, by Arthur Herman, which I have read twice, and bits and pieces many times over. By the way, if the link to the McDaniel book is broken (it links to the WSJ), good luck. It was hard to find, googling. From the review:
What emerges is a reminder that, if Scotland and France were the pre-eminent sites of the Enlightenment, England was its abiding subject. For the philosophes, 18th-century Britain's rise to imperial pre-eminence exemplified the new political dynamics of the modern age.
The superstructure of British power was naval might and trading wealth, but its foundation was fiscal mastery. The Bank of England and London's stock exchange established Europe's first major secondary market in government bonds.
This market allowed Britain to float open-ended loans serviced with dedicated tax revenues. To the investors of Europe, a free parliament (itself made up of bondholders) was far more credit-worthy than an absolute and capricious king.
While the French monarchy frantically sold off assets and borrowed at ruinous rates, Britain created a perpetual, rolling national debt. Smaller than France, Britain mobilized its wealth with vastly greater efficiency. The "financial revolution" made fortunes at home and an empire abroad. Its consequences are with us still.