Obama blames high unemployment on government sector layoffs

We either have an out-of-touch economic illiterate or a bald faced liar in the presidency. Or both, I guess.

CBS’s Mark Knoller, covering a town hall on the economy with the president this morning, reports: “President Obama blames high unemployment rate on ‘huge layoffs of government workers’ at federal, state and local levels.”

This is completely wrong. Extremely and mind-bogglingly wrong. Epically wrong.

And Jim Geraghty, who wrote that post, goes into a look at employment trends over the past few years. He finds that government sector employment has been steady to increasing over the years, while the recession has killed of a massive number of private sector jobs. Here, for instance, are the government sector numbers since 2007.

June 2007: 22,176,000.

January 2009: 22,471,000.

January 2010: 22,376,000.

April 2011: 22,594,000 (preliminary).

Steady. And actually, a modest increase over the past four years. Meanwhile, the private sector has lost about 8 million jobs over the same time span. Gallup even found that government sector job growth is outpacing private sector job growth right now. That’s not because government is better, it’s just bigger, thanks in no small part to Obama’s own policies.

Once again, President Obama shows where his heart is: Government largesse, not private enterprise. He consistently attacks the latter while growing and promoting the former.