GOP Chairman Steele: Government Jobs Not Really Jobs (Say What???)
(H/T Huffington Post) The Republicans recently selected Michael Steele to be their national committee chairman, apparently thinking that simply putting a black man in a prominent position will make them more competitive against Democrats under the Obama Administration. Whatever their reasoning, they will be happy to know that Steele has adopted a position regarding government jobs, particularly those that might be created via economic stimulus packages currently proposed by Democrats, that is gaining popularity on the Right; specifically, that position is that government jobs simply aren't jobs. (!) That doesn't make any sense to me either and it sure confused the hell out of ABC's George Stephanopoulos when Steele appeared on ABC's This Week.
Watch it:
Money quotes:
STEELE: You've got to look at what's going to create sustainable jobs. What this administration is talking about is making work. It is creating work.
STEPHANOPOULOS: But that's a job.
STEELE: No, it's not a job. A job is something that -- that a business owner creates. It's going to be long term. What he's creating...
STEPHANOPOULOS: So a job doesn't count if it's a government job?
Steele argued that the jobs created by a stimulus package would be temporary and contractual in nature and thus not constitute permanent jobs, thus not constitute jobs. Never mind that, as Sephanopoulos pointed out, that we have lost millions of private sector jobs recently, thus rendering many of them terminal in nature as well.
All of this bullshit dovetails nicely with the wave of revisionism cresting on the Right that suggests that FDR's New Deal didn't really create any jobs. That's only true, of course, if you ignore the people who were employed under New Deal programs.
Stephanopoulos pointed out that some Republicans outside of Washington, DC apparently are not with the party program. He noted that California's Gov. Arnold Scharzenegger (R) and Florida's Gov. Charlie Crist (R) backed creating jobs via stimulus. Quoth Charlie Crist, "It's about jobs, jobs, jobs."
Comments
And so the checks federal workers receive are not really checks, therefore the products and services they purchase with those funds are also not really bought nor are they paid for.
This juts in: Up is and has always been actually down and The Matrix is REAL!
Posted by: Derek Phillips | February 8, 2009 5:07 PM
By this logic, nobody who has a contractual job is actually employed.
Posted by: Jude | February 8, 2009 10:51 PM