Ezra Klein has been beating the drums on behalf of state workers. Here’s his latest missive:

Now, is this policy difference behind Germany’s recovery? Hard to say. Germany’s exports benefited massively from the Euro’s fall, and they ran some very large deficits early in the crisis. Germany might be doing well because their policy was sound, or they might be doing well because the collapse of the Euro worked in their favor, or some combination of the two. But either way, saving jobs makes a lot of sense, and that’s why it’s so crazy that we’re going to allows states to fire hundreds of thousands of public-sector workers. Their jobs are the easiest to save, and nothing we’ve done during this recession should make us confident that we can easily replace them.

Never mind that the states might be firing these workers simply because they recognize that their payrolls are inappropriate to the reality of their economies. Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead don’t let a single bureaucrat walk the plank.

It’s not a pretty day when we concentrate on saving jobs that aren’t part of the real economy. But, hey, they’re the easiest ones to save and besides they tend to vote for Democrats.