Of course the economy is humming along fine--look at all those new jobs!

by folkbum

The employment statistics are among those presented to bolster the claim that the George W. Bush economy has been a boom (leading to, dare I say it, prosperity?). All those new jobs people have, the argument goes, means we're not inarecession/ goingtodie/ inneedofaDemocraticpresident/ whatever.

Via Marginal Utility, there's this stunning fact from Marshall Jevons:

George W. Bush is in line to be the first president since World War II to preside over an economy in which federal government employment rose more rapidly than employment in the private sector.

The accompanying graph (from the New York Times, which also
has the story in words, but who needs words when you have a graph?) shows that since Eisenhower, only one president has shrunk the size of the federal work force. Your hint: It was not any of the small-government conservatives.