Sacrifices, Sacrifices, and more Sacrifices

The title of the article “Government needs to sacrifice and lay off more workers” is what caught my attention. I am a State of Texas employee, and recently witnessed the sacrifices our state and local government has made in order to meet our budget. For instance, the 4 billion dollars cut from our education funding.

Marie Diamond is the author of the blog commentary I chose. She is a reporter/blogger for ThinkProgress.org. She is from Temple, TX. She holds a B.A. in political science from Yale. She has previously worked at West Wing Writers, which is a speechwriting, and communications firm.

Marie opposes the statement Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX) made to CNBC. Rep. Brady complained the Government is not sacrificing jobs; instead, the federal government is hiring federal workers while everyone else is pinching pennies, and the people in the private sector are letting their employees go. Brady questioned the government, by asking, “When is the government going to sacrifice in order to help us get our financial house in order?”(CNBC).

Marie disputes that Brady’s suggestion and comments about the government are disturbing, out-of-touch, and not true. According to the dismal jobs report the unemployment rate has crept up 9.2 percent (thehill.com/blogs). The unemployment rate increasing is an indication that people remain unemployed, and more are becoming unemployed, including government workers. Marie quotes Matthew Yglesias who is a Fellow at the Center for American Progress Action Fund, and he holds a BA in Philosophy from Harvard University. Matt Yglesias’ documented that “over 500,000 government employees have lost their jobs since January 2009, despite the growth in our population” (thinkprogress.org). She also refers to David Leonhardt, whom is an economics columnist for The New York Times and he wrote that [if state and local governments had continued to hire at their previous pace, they would have added half a million jobs to the economy]. “In other words, government austerity over the past two years “‘has cost the economy about one million jobs’” (economix.blogs.nytimes.com).

I think the author intended to reach the working middleclass. In addition, I believe she is also trying to capture the attention of the population that serves the public, whether it is at the national or state and local level. I believe her main argument is that government workers have shouldered their fair share of economic pain, and that Rep Brady (R-TX) is incorrect in suggesting that federal government has not made sacrifices. I agree with the author, that government workers have felt the pain in one way or another. The unfortunate ones who have lost their jobs are the ones feeling the most pain. However, those of us who are fortunate enough to be employed today, live with the day-to-day worry that we will be the next one to lose our job, and be referred to as “that employee, the one who got the pink slip today.”