We sympathize with workers in both the private sector and government who have lost jobs in the current economic crisis.
But government cannot engineer jobs out of nothing by borrowing billions of dollars and spending it on government-approved projects. That should be obvious after the disastrous failure of the $862 billion federal “stimulus” to create promised jobs in the private sector.
The stimulus propped up government jobs but did little to help the private sector, where jobs kept disappearing by the millions.
So it is bizarre that Democrats in Congress are now pushing a $100 billion bill that would include a fresh, $75 billion federal bailout to shore up government jobs in cities and counties around the nation.
We do not wish joblessness on city or county workers — in Chattanooga and Hamilton County or anywhere else in our country. But the private sector is where most job losses have occurred, and a $75 billion city-county bailout will do little for unemployed private-sector employees.
What it will do is add to our $12.9 trillion national debt, on which we are paying hundreds of billions of dollars in interest this year alone.
We have tried the bailout/stimulus approach, and it has failed. We should not continue that failure.