Romney Suggests Fewer Firemen, Policemen, Teachers There's a squabble in the presidential campaign over whether Mitt Romney said the country needs fewer police officers, firefighters and teachers. Here's the he said, he said: Last week, during a campaign speech, Mr. Romney said: [The president] wants another stimulus, he wants to hire more government workers. Naturally the Obama campaign jumped all over this, releasing the following statement: Mitt Romney shockingly promised to cut jobs for firefighters, police, and teachers if elected. As President Obama urges Congress to pass his plan to put cops, firefighters, teachers, and construction workers back to work - after they left as many as 1 million jobs from his plan on the table - Mitt Romney has decided we need less jobs for middle class Americans, not more. That's the message he received this week. Then, earlier today, Mr. Romney went on Fox and tried to Etch A Sketch his gaffe away. Brian Kilmeade: [The president] says you want to cut firefighters and teachers, that you don't understand what's going on in these communities. What do you say to that, governor? Mitt Romney: That's a very strange accusation. Of course, teachers and firemen and policemen are hired at the local level and also by states. The federal government doesn't pay for teachers, firefighters or policemen. So obviously, that's completely absurd. He's got a new idea, though, and that is to have another stimulus and to have the federal government send money to try and bail out cities and states. It didn't work the first time. It certainly wouldn't work the second time. Confused? I think that's probably the intended effect. But let me try to cut through the clutter a bit, because the back-and-forth actually turns on something important. Obviously, Mr. Obama can't hire firefighters personally (even if he wants to), and Mr. Romney can't fire them (even though he likes firing people). But cuts in government aid to states and cities, which Mr. Romney advocates at every chance he gets, mean less money for, you got it, teachers, firefighters and police officers. Conversely, federal stimulus programs can help local governments hire more people. The right-wing has, of late, been amplifying its attacks on public-sector employees as overpaid, or slothful, or somehow responsible for the economic crisis. That's what Mr. Romney meant, I suppose, by the "message of Wisconsin." That's just propaganda. Arguably public sector union pensions are unsustainable in many places, but government employees are hardly living it up at the taxpayers" expense. As Ben Polak and Peter Schott wrote on the Economix blog yesterday, "the recovery in private-sector employment, once it finally started, has not been particularly slow by recent historical standards" whereas "since the latest recession began, local government employment has fallen by 3 percent, and is still falling." Underlying Mr. Romney's comments is the assumption that government employment is not really employment at all, and also that public-sector workers are somehow in a different category from all other taxpayers. How else to explain his statement that spending cuts, which result in teacher layoffs, will "help the American people"? But really none of this is terribly surprising. Let's keep in mind that this is the same candidate who once said he was "not concerned about the very poor."