Government spending can’t create jobs across the economy.

Graphical Proof: Government Spending Doesn't Create Jobs

A year ago 2009 Brian Wesbury published this graph in The American Spectator indicating a strong correlation between increased government spending and increased unemployment:

That graphic has since been updated for another year's worth of unemployment numbers, and the results are striking:

 

The point?  Government spending can't create jobs across the economy.  It can inflate government payrolls, sure, and perhaps create some jobs with specific government contractors.  But across the economy, government spending doesn't create jobs.

Which means that there is no justification for the deficit spending spree our politicians are currently on.  The excuses we hear from Obama and his apologists like "deficit hawk" Senator Kent Conrad is that the spending is necessary to stimulate the economy.

That's not true.  The spending isn't helping.  It's hurting.