August 18, 2011 09:38 PM UTC

Perry no "job creator" in Texas

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• by: Half Glass Full

Rick Perry’s major claim to fame has been as a “job creator,” but it seems like Mitt Romney and Michele Bachmann – not to mention Barack Obama – should be able to puncture that balloon pretty easily.

Here are the numbers, which come from the federal government’s Bureau of Labor Statistics: Between the beginning of 2008 and the end of 2010 (the latest data available), Texas created about 75,000 jobs. That makes it one of the few states with any job creation at all over that time. But federal, state and local government hiring accounted for 115,000 new jobs in Texas, while private industry shed about 40,000 jobs.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44…

So the fact is that since 2008, the only growth in jobs in Texas have been GOVERNMENT jobs. The number of PRIVATE-SECTOR jobs has actually shrunk.

And as the article goes on to say, these government jobs have largely been supported by federal grants to Texas: either defense spending or federal stimulus funds.