He’s either clueless or lying. Considering it’s Harry Reid, I’m leaning towards the latter.

“It’s very clear that private-sector jobs have been doing just fine; it’s the public-sector jobs where we’ve lost huge numbers, and that’s what this legislation is all about,” Reid said on the Senate floor.

Oh yes, by all means, let’s spend more money we don’t have to employ more government workers. And we can get that money by taxing the private sector, which in turn will see less investment and more job losses. That should really fix the unemployment problem in this country.

Or not.

In fact, and Ed Morrissey provides charts to back this up, the government sector has actually grown over the past five years by a net gain of more than a half-million workers. And even when it’s experienced layoffs, it’s at a slower pace than the private sector. We’re not suffering from a lack of bureaucrats as Reid suggests.

The problem we have is an ever-expanding government, with ever-more burdensome regulations and mandates, funding its activities with ever-higher tax rates. That crushes the private sector, starving the productive bit of the economy to feed the unproductive bit. Which is why we’re seeing stagnation rather than recovery.