Austerity.

Notes on the economy via Jonathon Chait:

Here are a few salient facts: The political scientist Larry Bartels has found (and measured) that members of Congress respond much more strongly to the preferences of their affluent constituents than their poor ones. And for affluent people, there is essentially no recession. Unemployment for workers with a bachelors degree is 4 percent — boom times. Unemployment is also unusually low in the Washington, D.C., area, owing to our economy’s reliance on federal spending, which has not had to impose the punishing austerity of so many state and local governments.

My bold. This is where people get fooled so easily, by thinking that the evil phantasm of evil gub'ment! is not made up of real people:

...of course government on any level bigger than the Junior Women's Club is not made up of real people that you may know and live amongst but are instead a faceless, nameless phantasm of evil, socialist energy that will merely be forced into some backroom to shake it's fists at the sky "damn you, freedom, you've beaten me THIS time!!!" and rub it's hands with glee at the prospect of coming back again and trying to destroy America as if in some Spy vs. Spy cartoon or Jerry muttering "Newman!!" through clenched teeth.

The government doesn't seem to have a problem keeping the lights on in order to keep folks working where they so choose; however, when stupid people demand that the gub'ment act in a way to totally fuck themselves over, it's only too happy to comply.