George Bush, ultimate Keynesian

Forgive me for getting to this late, but it’s not like I’ve seen this anywhere in the big boy press.

Dceiver pointed me to this Economic Policy Institute graph that demonstrates quite, um, graphically that all of the claimed job growth during the Bush 43 era comes from government spending. Yes, federal government spending; not tax cuts to private industry. Not even close.

Follow the link to the EPI site for the full explanation, but the bottom line is that military spending created 1.495 million jobs in the private sector since 2001, and non-defense discretionary spending resulted in an additional 1.325 million. That equals 2.82 million private sector jobs created by federal spending since 2001.

But—by the administration’s own account—the private sector has only grown by 2 million jobs in that time. So, the rest of the private sector—those in private industry that have “benefited” from Bush’s tax cuts but have not benefited from the federal spending—have actually lost jobs! Maybe they cut ‘em, maybe they shipped ‘em overseas, but they sure as shit didn’t create jobs here in the US with their newfound wealth.

Where did that money go? Maybe the next time some supply-sider gets all up in your grill about the magic of super low corporate taxes, you can just point to the graph and say, “you do the math,” and then, “show me the money.”