Slate's Curious Economics

In Slate, Dan Gross attacks "nutso" claims the government doesn't creates jobs. He singles out Michael Steele's for saying, "Let's get this notion out of our heads that the government create jobs. Not in the history of mankind has the government ever created a job." Gross writes: "These claims are so peculiar that it's hard to know where to begin. Contrary to Steele's assertion, in the history of mankind, the government has in fact created many, many jobs (including the one he held for a few years: lieutenant governor of Maryland)." This is news to me. This morning, the Labor Department reported that initial jobless claims rose by 35,000 to reach 626,000, a 26-year high. So let's make all those folks the lieutenant governor of Maryland. Problem solved.