Krugman is right

The Repubicans didn't lose a nanosecond in pouncing on Obama's unfortunately worded line:  "The private sector is doing fine."    Paul Krugman, with his usual clarity, points out what Obama meant -- and Obama was exactly correct.   What he obviously meant is the important message that needs to be out there.   Instead we get headlines screaming about "Obama's gaffe" from even the liberal media.

Krugman:

"The truth is the private sector is doing better than the public sector, which is not well enough. . . The real story of this economy is that cutbacks at the public sector are what's hurting the recovery."

Krugman continued.

"By this point in Obama's presidency, if we had normal public sector job growth, we'd have 800,000 more people -- firefighters, schoolteachers, police officers. Instead, we've got 600,000 fewer. So right there it's like 1.4 million jobs we should have had in the public sector and of course those would translate into more private sector jobs too -- so that's what he was trying to get at."

The facts are that the private sector has gained about 4.2 million jobs since early 2010, while there are 607,000 fewer people working in government jobs due to cutbacks in state and local budgets -- exacerbated by Republican-forced cutbacks in federal assistance.

But Romney and the Republicans, of course, took political advantage and made much of saying that Obama is "out of touch."

He's not out of touch.  But he did screw up in the way he tried to make his point.  This worries me.   We can't afford for him to bungle the message.

Ralph