jim moran on what is wrong with economy

"Right now we've got to get this economy back on its feet," said Rep. Jim Moran (D-VA) (and I swear to God that is his actual name). "And the most de-stimulating part of our economy right now is state and local spending. They're cutting back and in fact in the last three months they cut about 100,000 jobs. In the last two years they've cut over 300,000 jobs. These are people who won't be able to make their mortgage payments, who won't be shopping at stores, who will be pulling the economy down..."

Really?  This moran really thinks the most destimulating part of our economy is lack of state and local spending? Is this in anyway a defensible viewpoint?  But I guess this is what you think when you represent northern Virginia and the only reason there are jobs there is because the huge largess of the federal government which takes money from the productive members of the rest of the country so that people in Moran's district can push some paper around.  Let's look at Exhibit A to see whether job losses in the public sector are a major problem right now.

Exhibit A

So state and local government job losses, which are more than offset by the number of jobs added by the federal government and are only 1.7% the number of losses in the private sector, are the major destimulating factor in the economy?  Look, the House and Senate just passed the $26 billion bailout of state governments.  This is nothing more than a special interest payout to union members by the democrats.  This money was meant for the American Federation of Teachers and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees as payback for the campaigning for democrats the past few cycles.  Their major constituency wanted some cash and they got it.

And I am tired of the staright up bullshit that we have to do it "for the children."  Nothing about this money is going to help children.  These unions don't care about the children.  Now I'm not saying that teachers don't care about their students, but I am saying that the unions don't.  I could go on a rant about how the teacher's unions are the number one reason why are public schools are failing, but I already did, although only partially, here and here.  In short, teachers can't be fired, so once they are hired they continue to educate our kids even if they are horrible.  Why is this acceptable in our society?  Everyone in every other kind of profession is accountable.  And not only accountable for the amount of effort they put in.  They are accountable for RESULTS.  I don't give two shits if you are a teacher who comes in early and leaves late.  If your kids aren't getting the proper education then you should be fired and try a career doing something else.  This is the way it works in the real world.

But alas this is to no avail.  The only study I could find was in 2005 and the U.S. was ranked third in education spending in the world at around $8,000 per pupil (here).  However, that number is way under the actual spending levels as it includes only what is spent by state and local districts directly on the pupils.  It does not include the money that goes into the education bureaucracy or the outlays spent directly by the federal government.  In fact these two recent studies by the Washington Post and the Cato Institute showed that actual per student spending was closer to $25,000 and $19,000 in the school districts in Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles, receptively.  And these are two of the worst schoold districts in the country.  Until we recognize that accountability of educators and not spending it what is needed, public schools will continue to fail.  But don't worry, that moran said that we can alleviate the biggest destimulating section of the economy by giving them tens of billions more!  And I'm sure this money will lead to better results.  Until it doesn't.  And then the teachers demand more money.  And the cycle continues...