October 25, 2011 - 12:43 PM

Harry Reid's Strange Logic

by Mike Huckabee

 Last week Majority Leader Harry Reid took to the floor of the Senate to talk about "Jobs."  He made a rather bizarre statement saying "It's very clear that private-sector jobs have been doing just fine; it's the public-sector jobs where we've lost huge numbers, and that's what this legislation is all about."
Oh really?  At a time when State governments are strangling on the debt they are incurring in trying to honor their public sector contracts, at a time when most Americans agree that the size of the federal government is simply too large to be sustainable, Harry Reid wants us to concentrate on helping to increase public sector jobs?  Even Politifact was forced to say that Reid's statement was "mostly false."

In a time when more Americans than ever are without work, and most of us agree that the number one issue confronting our nation is getting Americans back to work, it seems like the last thing you would expect out of a Congressional leader is a statement that we are doing ok with 14 million Americans out of work, but really need to work on increasing the public sector jobs.

Of course, it doesn't help Senator Reid that his numbers are all wrong.  The White House budget office says that when the financial crisis hit in 2008 the federal executive branch had 1.875 million full time employees.  Two years later, that number had increased by 253,000 jobs, a 13.5% increase. Maybe Harry meant state and local government jobs?  Well, state governments have cut payrolls by all of 49,000 since September 2010, and local governments have eliminated 210,000 workers in the last year.

With an unemployment rate of 9.1% and 14 million Americans looking for work, and millions more under-employed or working two jobs just to survive, Mr. Reid's logic is strange indeed.
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  • Mikels, Audrey

    11/01/2011 01:26 PM

    He's been there so long he thinks he's owns the Senate; times comiing when he's going to be voted out by the people who knows he not doing anything but stall bills from passing what the country needs; but.... when he can't find a job; he will understand how it feels to be unemployed!!!!!!

  • Hayden , John

    10/26/2011 05:51 AM

    It's easy to criticize another parties comments. I'm one of the many independents, that's entirely feed up with finger pointing and impossible campaign promises. Politicians look at number's, and numbers only. Depending on what study you look at, those numbers can go in your favor. The sad reality is that each one of those numbers represent a real person. Lets get back to caring about individuals and less about statistics. I recently heard about Perry's tax plan. ARE U SERIOUS! How about u comment on that nonsense Mr Huckabee. It's a classic example of the rich getting richer, and the poor getting poorer. Its my humble opinion that dealing with taxes right now is putting the cart before the horse. Corruption is our main problem, until you address this issue, the American people will never have real representation.

  • Hundrieser, Nancy

    10/25/2011 09:28 PM

    Speaking of state governments, their budgets, unions, etc., have any of you, particularly in Il; read this from Oct 4th?
    Everyone knows about Blago, but I'm starting to think he was a better governor than Pat Quinn.
    http://www.illinoisisbroke.com/newsitem.aspx?id=1504

  • Cobb, Walter

    10/25/2011 04:10 PM

    Obviously the Senator is "out there".

  • Upchurch, Carol

    10/25/2011 12:58 PM

    The liberal government has all their priorities confused! Our president is a big fake, trying to pretend he cares, but is on a campaign for himself. He doesn't know what he's doing, so I guess he might as well be out on a bus, except he's spending money we don't have. Sorry, this sounds cold...just sick of the lies and prentenous character...:(