Defense Cuts Undermine Jobs Push (From Forbes)

Proponents of the administration’s jobs bill say that if the $447 billion measure is enacted, it could create 1-2 million new jobs. However, defense cuts that may occur pursuant to the deficit-reduction law signed by President Obama in August could wipe out a million jobs, blunting the job-creation effort. Furthermore, the kinds of jobs that big defense cuts would destroy tend to be higher-paid positions more closely related to exports and innovation than the positions that the pending jobs bill would create. I have written a commentary on the economic impact of defense cuts for Forbes that can be found here. Bloomberg’s BGov unit released an assessment of how defense spending impacts job creation yesterday that came to similar conclusions as my commentary using more sophisticated methodology.