Labor & Employment Law

Boehner on Job Loss from Republican Budget: ?So Be It?

By Mike Hall

The truth is finally out.

Despite all his cries?and we?re not talking about his tendency to tear up?of ?Where are the jobs?? and criticism about  President Obama?s jobs record during the campaign,  House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) really doesn?t give a (fill in the blank) about jobs or the people who find themselves on the unemployment line.

Today, when asked by reporters about the tens of thousands of workers who would be on the street if Boehner?s and the Republicans? budget plan actually passed, here?s what he said.

If some of those jobs are lost, so be it.

That?s about as big a WTF answer to a very serious question that he could have made.

Like their colleagues on the state level, Boehner and his Republican cohorts are trying to demonize and dehumanize public workers, in this case federal employees from aviation workers and food safety inspectors to nurses, immigration officers and teachers.

They claim they are going after a so-called ?bloated? federal workforce. But the Washington Post reported last September there were only 20,000 more federal employees under Obama in 2010 than under George W. Bush in 2002?and that, on a per capita basis (federal employees per 1,000 Americans), it’s at the lowest level at least since 1962.

BTW, while Boehner and House Republicans all promised they would focus on job creation if they won the House majority, here is there track record so far.

• Number of Republicans bills offered on jobs?ZERO
• Number of hearings on job creation ideas?ZERO
• Number of votes on job creation measures?ZERO.

(Thanks to Brian Buetler at TPM and Matt Finkelstein at PoliticalCorrection for the heads up on Boehner).

Full post as published by AFL-CIO NOW BLOG on February 15, 2011 (boomark / email).