Scott Walker the gubernatorial candidate says, “I’m going to create 250,000 new jobs in Wisconsin,‘ while Scott Walker the Milwaukee County Executive says, “See ya…wouldn’t wanna be ya!” to the 76 Milwaukee County employees he handed pink slips to on Friday.
I guess this means Scott Walker will now have to create 250,076 jobs.
See Zach, government jobs are not REAL jobs so we won’t count those.
Sometimes I wish the ALL the county employees would go on strike at the same time. Let’s see how all the non-government folks can function without all the government workers taking care of business for them.
Zach…did any of Walker’s cronies get a pink slip (or more than likely a pay raise)??
Exactly. I’m betting someone like Kent doesn’t want to work in the prison system, but yet he’s content to attack government workers as not having “real jobs.”
Personally, I find it amusing whenever a politician talks about creating jobs. The only jobs that government has the ability to create are government jobs. So, is Walker planning on hiring another 250,000 government jobs?
Of course, Walker never said that new jobs were in addition to the already existing jobs–thus, he can re-count jobs by only looking at new hires. For example, If the first guy gets hired then quits and a new guy is hired, thats two new jobs created. So i suppose he could get hit his number through churn and burn.
Ok, since I have accused of Walker of being a simpleton in the past, I suppose it’s only fair if I give him credit when deserved. Previously, I criticized Walker’s oversight of the Courthouse custodial and sanitary conditions. I will note that since Walker has privatized the custodial work the courthouse is much cleaner. And, courthouse staff also indicated that conditions have improved. So for what its worth, I’ll recant my criticism.
I don’t think it’s at all fair to say government jobs aren’t real jobs – especially to the people in them, most of whom are hardworking individuals. That said, there is a huge difference between public & private sector jobs in the larger sense. The former cost taxpayers money, the latter generate tax revenues. One can respect the work people do in necessary public sector jobs and still prefer job creation in the private sector.
Locke, how does a private sector job generate tax revenue while a public sector job does not?
As to your last point, I don’t think anyone would argue that job growth in the private sector is key to any healthy economy, and ideally private sector employment should grow much faster than government employment, but that doesn’t mean there shouldn’t be any government employees, which I believe is Kent’s point.
Zach,
Not really, even I think we need some government. What I am saying, please stop complaining about government pay. You make a choice of employment and the private sector should make more, much, much more. They take much more risk and deserve the rewards.
Kent, I’m not complaining about government pay; that’d be the folks at WPRI.
I didn’t mean to imply public sector don’t generate tax revenue as well. But who is paying that tax revenue – taxpayers, it’s just gone one round through the system.
I figured it would be pretty obvious – state pays Bob a salary of $40,000 a year, and collects 6% back in income tax, that’s a net of about -$37,600. Big evil corp pays a Bob $40K, the state nets + $2400.
Like I said, I’m not going to say something idiotic like we shouldn’t have people doing many of the important government jobs. But if we’re talking about adding jobs, it’s like saying that my paycheck a cash advance on my credit card are the same. They’re not – one generates revenue and the other is a liability that must be paid for both now and in the future.
Locke, that’s the point I was getting at, and like I wrote before, I’m in agreement that the best case scenario is for lots of jobs to be created in the private sector, while remembering that it’s important to maintain levels of services that are adequate to address the needs of the citizens.