Senator Rand Paul vs. Paul Krugman
The following was posted by Senator Rand Paul on his Facebook page: Professor Krugman argues statistics in his usual fashion: making them up or adding in irrelevant information to prove his predetermined point. On Sunday’s “This Week,” he and I were debating the size of government workforce under President Obama. The only logical number we could have been discussing was the number of federal workers. Since the last time I checked, Barack Obama was the President, not a mayor or governor.
Rand Paul discusses the issue on Sirius XM radio with Pete Dominick.
(See video of the exchange with Krugman, here.)
Under President Obama, the federal workforce has grown by 143,000 according to the Labor Department. That’s a lot of new federal workers, though it pales in comparison to the enormous growth of government spending and debt accrued in his same Administration.
Yet Professor Krugman added in local and state workers to inflate this number, an irrelevant point at best. In fact, it was a disingenuous argument, which he then astonishingly gloated about making on his blog.
I prefer to stick to the facts – and the facts are, there are 143,000 more federal workers since President Obama took office. I urge Professor Krugman to join me in debating actual, relevant statistics.
“I prefer to stick to the facts – and the facts are, there are 143,000 more federal workers since President Obama took office. I urge Professor Krugman to join me in debating actual, relevant statistics.”
Okay, so out of a total of 2.8 million, 143,000 represents the “enormous” growth in government jobs that Rand Paul was claiming on the panel discussion?
Even had Rand Paul said “Looking only at federal government, employment has grown enormously under President Obama” he would have been wrong. It’s grown a tiny percent, even at the federal level. And of course looking at all government, which is the only logical way to understand “government employment”, it’s gone down tremendously.
Here is the only version of the claim that Rand Paul could have made that would have been true:
“Looking only a federal government, employment has gone up a tiny percentage under President Obama.”
Yes, not quite the same impact, but then truth has a well-known liberal bias as