Courtesy of Mark Thoma of Economist's View
Once again, Jeff Sachs takes on the editorial page of the WSJ and tries to expose the "big lie of our time" (or one of them anyway):
How the Wall Street Journal Misleads About Federal Jobs, by Jeff Sachs: The editorial board of Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal has a simple game. They want to cut taxes for the rich and government services for the rest, and end regulations of banks and the environment. They support taxpayer-financed bailouts of Wall Street when needed. They will twist any facts in the service of these goals.
Today's lead editorial, with its graph of "Obama's Growing Payroll," is a perfect example… The gist of the editorial is that Obama is presiding over a massive increase of government, exemplified by the surge of civilian employees. The graph shows a striking rise of federal employment from around 1.875 million in 2008 to 2.1 million in 2011. (I reproduce this as Figure 1 below).
The Journal neglects the fact that today's 2.1 million workers is actually identical to the number of Federal employees in 1981 at the start of the Reagan Administration, 1989 at the end of the Reagan Administration, and 1993 at the end of the Bush Sr. Administration. The numbers went down slightly after that … with a decline in Defense Department civilian employees, a decline that was probably offset by the rise of private defense contractors (not included in the OMB tables). There is no long-term trend at all. (I show this as Figure 2 below)…
The big lie of our time is that the federal government is expanding out of control. … For government services that count for the 99 percent, the federal government is shrinking, alas, no matter which phony figures theWall Street Journal throws our way.
Figure 1. Federal Employment 2001-2012, Source: OMB
Figure 2. Federal Employment, 1981 to 2011, Source: OMB
Figure 3. Federal Employment as a Percent of Non-Farm Employment,
Source: OMB and Bureau of Labor Statistics
