lay off many public sector employees.
As the Wall Street Journal pointed out earlier this week, you could fire every single government employee, both civilian and military, and we'd still be running a deficit. Payroll is only a small part of the budget.
As soon as the Republicans take the Senate back, they'll abolish the filibuster on day 1. That should be obvious.
I'd like to hope they would, but I doubt it. There are enough people in both parties who think it is their party's political self-interest to preserve the filibuster. The Republicans will need at least 55 Senators to get rid of the filibuster.
The way things are shaping up, I doubt that whoever wins in November will be having a happy 2013. Between Europe and the drought, I think we'll be headed back into recession, if we don't get there sooner. Then there is the headache of Iran, not to mention some other crisis that is likely to pile on.
...and also note the fact that the states who have adopted the highest public sector job cuts, have been the ones to see the lowest private sector job growth as well as overall economic improvement.
If the public sector jobs that have been cut were to be restored, the unemployment rate would be somewhere around 7.5%... plus despite what the right says, public sector jobs are real jobs. If you consider that jobs = disposable income = economic activity - trying to find opportunities to lay more people off at a time of economic sluggishness seems utterly stupid to me. PLUS, despite what people say, most are very fond of the services provided by the government, so you get less people, trying to deliver the same services at the same levels, now that seems incredibly inefficient.
Public sector employees providing services and working efficiently won't lose their jobs. It's those public sector employees that create their work by imposing rules and regulations and charging fees for enforcing them that are superfluous.
Look, if you don’t like the temporary rise in unemployment that’s going to happen, it’s better to just tell those bureaucrats to stay home and keep receiving their paychecks doing nothing. Remember the Parkinson’s law:
Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.Anybody who has ever worked in government or any other type of public service knows that these are the truths:
(1) "An official wants to multiply subordinates, not rivals."
(2) "Officials make work for each other."
Given unlimited funds, everybody would become part of the government.
