Re: "Real job numbers are better than reported by media" [Village News, Letter, 8/9/18]

There seems to be a general misapprehension that “Government doesn’t do anything, and certainly doesn’t create jobs." That seems particularly odd here in San Diego County, considering the economic contributions of the Navy and Marine Corps.

Nationwide, in 2017, the Army and Navy issued contracts to private corporations to the tune of more than $200 billion: Google “Bloomberg, Five key DOD contract trends, Jan. 24, 2018.”

That pays for lots of goods and services provided by private sector employees. And other government agencies contract out to private sector companies as well. Additionally, Government makes numerous small business set-asides, so huge corporations don’t hog it all.

Regarding Trump’s tax cuts for the wealthy: as expected, the majority of that bonanza went into corporate stock buybacks, further enriching the already wealthy. Meanwhile, lower and middle economic-class wages continue to stagnate: Google “Unemployment is below 4 percent, but wage growth is still lousy...” (Washington Post, May 4, 2018)

President Obama’s quote was taken out of context. When he said, “you didn’t build that,” he was referring back to the infrastructure, not to a new business. And regarding Obama’s term in office, don’t forget that for most of that time he had the Tea Party Congress to contend with, which was elected specifically to thwart his every effort.

John H. Terrell