Bob CollinsToday’s surprise announcement that Eagan is going to lose 650 jobs is certainly an invitation to revisit the simple proverbs of the recently completed campaign season.
Six-hundred-and-fifty jobs? That’s a lot of people working and spending money. Is the impact of losing them going to be any less just because they were jobs created with government money?
Lockheed Martin, the largest defense contractor in the world, makes the avionics systems for the P-1 marine surveillance plane. It’s a private company, of course, that employs the people because the U.S. and other nations wage wars and/or have huge defense budgets.
There’s a little something for everyone in today’s announcement. Except for the people losing their jobs.
The reality of how intertwined jobs are with government spending becomes more clear, and more confusing. Liberals, for example, might point out that conservatives are for less government spending and this is what happens when government spends less; that the claim that “government doesn’t create jobs” is wrong. They could even point out that the jobs are going to three states, two of which are rated in the top 10 of business-unfriendly states.
But conservatives could equally point out that liberals who want the U.S. to cut its defense budget will cost people their jobs. And that peace thing? War employs people even as it bankrupts a treasury.
In the complex nature of the economy, where does the government part end and the private part begin?
In other unemployment news today, Republicans in the House have blocked a bill
that would have extended jobless benefits for the long-term unemployed beyond the holiday season.Two million people will lose benefits averaging $310 a week nationwide by the end of the year.
