Message #469

[wbcoleman]

I caught This Week with George Stephanopoulos yesterday which was more feisty than usual.  The increased level of contention was probably more about the participants than the subject matter. Instead of the usual stoic George Will and dreary Donna Brazille, the panelists were Van Jones, Ed Rendell, Ann Coulter, and Mike Huckabee.  Predictably, Ms. Coulter drew the most fire.

As usual the drumbeat coming from the leftists on the panel was how terrible the USA would be if republicans made good on their promise to rein-in federal spending.  This would in their minds lead to layoffs of teachers, police officers, and firefighters which everybody knows means the end-of-the-world.

Jones and Rendell offered the usual left-wing tripe and Coulter rightly noted that plans for the hiring of teachers too often actually morph into the hiring of diversity coordinators and other politically correct yet non-essential, non-teacher jobs.  But Mike Huckabee threw the knockout punch at the very end of the conversation.  It was too late, and it went completely unnoticed, even by me, until I watched a recap of it on the net.

Huckabee made what should have been the conversation ending observation that the federal government doesn't really employ any police officers, firefighters, or teachers.  It's true. Your local arm of government, be it the county or the city, is the real true employer of policemen, firemen, and teachers.  The federal government employs only a tiny number of these workers.  The only place where federal police officers, firefighters, and teachers are found is on military installations and national parks and monuments.  That's it.  If your house catches fire, or your business is burglarized, the local authorities will come, not federal authorities.  And of course your kids go to their local school which is funded in all likelihood by local property taxes.  The federal government simply does not provide these essential services, yet you wouldn't know that from listening to Van Jones and Ed Rendell.  They say that reining-in federal spending will necessarily reduce the numbers of police, fire, and teachers.  I say BS.  In fact, one could make the argument that the more money that is spent on the federal government, the less is available for local governments.

In an honest exchange, as soon as Huckabee noted that the feds employ but a tiny fraction of people in those occupations, the conversation would have ended.  The whole police, fire, teacher angle is rendered moot. There is no reason for any more discussion. Game over. Done.

Sadly, knock-out facts like Huckabee's are easily brushed aside by modern politicians. I'd be embarrassed to continue to argue the same old talking points when they had been so thoroughly discredited but today's left just plows on like it never happened.

Here's a link to the episode.

I think it was Nixon who got around this.  Didn't he originate the idea of block grants to the states?  Nowadays, state and local governments may employ these workers, but the Federal government helps fund them.