The U.S. now has the fewest government workers since 2001

Yesterday's jobs numbers revealed a shocking truth, at least for those who believe that President Obama is a socialist/communist/Marxist/Alinskyite.

As Floyd Norris at the New York Times points out, government now employs 15.9 percent of all Americans who have jobs. That is the lowest proportion since 2001, and almost a million less people than five years ago. Hardly what you'd expect from a pinko determined to turn the U.S. into a European-style socialist republic.

But the more serious point is that this slide in government employment has come at a time when there remain millions of unemployed people who could use a job.

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Fortunately, as Norris points out, the layoffs may finally be coming to an end: