It's contrary to every Republican economic talking point, which probably goes a long way toward explaining why I found it on page eleven of my local paper and why no television talking heads have brought it up. An
Associated Press piece explains that austerity measures are holding economic recovery back and that Republican governors share a large part of the blame. May "was the seventh consecutive month of public-sector job losses," the piece tells us. "Rather than add to U.S. economic growth, states and cities are subtracting from it."
The Great Recession officially ended two years ago this month. During previous recoveries, state and local governments were engines of growth by this point: In the two years after the 1990-91 recession ended, for example, they had added 430,000 jobs. They had added 249,000 two years after the 2001 recession ended.
This time is different. More than 467,000 state and local government jobs, including 188,000 in schools, have vanished since the recession officially ended in June 2009...[CLICK TO READ FULL POST]
