Another Right Wing Cliche Proven False

"The government doesn't create jobs."

How many times have you heard a right winger say that?

It's been a common talking point among Republicans for years. Scott Walker ran on it a couple of years ago and credits it, in part, for his election as governor. Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan are going back and forth across the country repeating it. Almost every Republican candidate, on all levels of races, are using it as their tagline, promising to reduce government spending.

But look what happens when you do cut government spending:

Oshkosh Corp. will lay off 450 production employees in mid-January in response to declining military spending.

The company announced the layoffs to employees over the lunch hour Thursday. In a press release, the company said reduced U.S. Defense Department spending will require it to reduce its production workforce in Oshkosh from about 4,000 to 3,500. The company’s total Oshkosh workforce, including managers and office personnel, will be reduced from 4,500 to 4,000.

The company aggressively ramped up the size of its workforce between 2008 and 2011 after winning contracts to produce more than 8,000 Mine-resistant All-Terrain Vehicles, or M-ATVs, and 23,000 Family of Medium Tactical Vehicles trucks, or FMTVs.

It held job fairs in 2008 and 2011 to hire more than 1,000 workers, which brought thousands of people from across the state to Oshkosh in search of work at a time of high unemployment in most cities.

Now, Oshkosh Corp. needs to adjust as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan come to a close.

“These are always difficult decisions,” Oshkosh Corp. spokesman John Daggett said. “Unfortunately, there’s no huge contract in the near future that will have a significant impact. But there could be different changes just based on a lot of moving factors.”

Another right wing talking point, about those damn greedy union thugs, also gets shut down at the same time:

The United Auto Workers Local 578 Bargaining Committee released a written statement Thursday afternoon expressing concern about the layoffs’ impact on the community and working families.

“As expected, the union is very concerned not only about the impact to our membership, but also their family members and the surrounding community,” the statement reads. “The union is also very concerned that the company has outsourced work and we are in the process of attemping to bring this work in and explore additional work with the company. We are also looking into ways to lessen the impact of an outright layoff, such as the possibility for some to retire early. The union will continue discussions with the company on these matters to lessen the burden as much as possible.”

Are the Republicans so greedy that they are absolutely unable to tell the truth anymore? Or is that they are merely looking at increasing their hold on power so that we can all become corporate serfs, just like in the "good old days?"

The scariest part is that Scott Walker has no clue about what he needs to do so it could end up being absolutely devastating to not only the region's economy, the entire state's as the ripple effects are felt.