Can Government Create Jobs or Not?

I’m confused by Republicans in Washington, and here’s why: For most of President Obama’s term, they have ignored the millions of jobs the Congressional Budget Office says the 2009 stimulus legislation created and instead argued that the government is incapable of boosting employment. Summing up the larger sentiment, Sen. John Kyl (R-Ariz.) in 2011 said “government spending doesn’t create jobs,” and Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) insisted in 2010 that “it’s not the government that’s going to create jobs in this country.”

Fast forward to the present debate over impending budget cuts. Incredibly, the same Republican Party that once insisted the government can’t create jobs is now barnstorming the country telling us the government can, in fact, create jobs—lots of them.

This isn’t an exaggeration. As The Hill newspaper reports, Republican senators—many of whom suggested government can’t create jobs—are hosting town hall meetings to sound the alarm about how proposed defense spending reductions “would cause significant job losses” and therefore hurt the economy.

Ayotte’s rhetorical paroxysms are especially illustrative—and perplexing. In a CNN interview to promote the events, the New Hampshire senator—the same lawmaker who said “it’s not the government that’s going to create jobs”—implored Americans to “think about in terms of jobs, 136,000 defense jobs in Virginia. They have to issue layoff notices before the election, so members of Congress need to come together on this.”

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/can_government_create_jobs_or_not_20120810/