So I decided that I'd at least link to some data to perhaps make it a bit meatier... as I see politicians continuing to fret over that evil deficit, I wish someone would inform them that a big cause of declining tax revenues/increasing deficit is... unemployment!
And that isn't just a short term thing. Longer term the unemployed find their job skills degrading, more are likely to move into gray market employment where income isn't necessarily taxed, labor force participation might decline, etc. There aren't these two separate things - unemployment and deficit - they're rather intertwined.
