Glenn Kessler, the Washington Post “Fact Checker” reviewed the claims of President Barry Obama and his unappealing surrogate David Axelrod who, among others, allege that our real need is more police officers, firefighters and especially teachers to drive our economy out of the ditch in which Mr. Bush parked us. Kessler correctly discerned that in the case of teachers, the numbers they stress are made up. They are worst case projected layoffs from future budget requests; they include all government-run school employees, not only teachers; and they do not account for any changes in school populations, altered teaching techniques or other changes that significantly affect the teachers/student ratio.

But especially the ratio of teachers to school employees is compelling. Kessler deduces that nationally 67% of public school employees are teaching.  In Montgomery County [Maryland] Public Schools the ratio, according to the “Schools at a Glance” fact sheet is about 50%:

 21,967 employees
 11,593 teachers

Only half of Montgomery County Public Schools employees teach . . . which may be a good thing. But, one can be sure that schools can economize first at many administrative levels before parents would allow teachers to be cashiered.

More important I think, and I’m surprised that no one is challenging the concept, is the notion that teachers, firemen and police are officers are the new Public Service Employment program revived from the Carter Administration and long ago discredited.

It was a farce in which federal spending for make work “youth” jobs – up to age 25 – ramped up in sync with unemployment, the theory being that it would hold down the unemployment rate and teach critical job skills to “at-risk” youth. What we got instead was 11.8% unemployment and many wasted billions on patronage jobs for extant politicians.

Municipalities all over America, large, small, and middling, were sued to recover funds that were illegally spent, and some politicians were jailed for their excesses. If only that could happen today!

So, about those jobs beyond just teachers: With the FBI reporting crime near all time lows, what is the rationale for more police?  Is there a spate of fires we have yet to notice? The common thread is of course that the three job categories are all public service union dues payers who will contribute through their bosses to Democrat politicians, especially Mr. Obama.

It is an endless disappointment that WaPo’s “reporters” and nearly all in the Mainstream are so incurious, often uninformed, clearly ideologically propelled, and simply don’t dig to get tot the root of these debates.  People may conclude that it’s good to over-employ in the public sector for any number of reasons. But, they should know who’s paying what to whom for what.