The last three years are the worst on record for public sector job loss, and the 700,000 government jobs that no longer exist remain a large drag on the American economy.

Today, New Jersey Gov. and Mitt Romney campaign surrogate Chris Christie (R) said that those losses meant the country was moving in “the right direction,” and Romney himself backed that statement up later, criticizing President Obama for calling for the hiring of more teachers, firefighters, and police officers, the Washington Post’s Greg Sargent reports. From CNN’s report of the Romney event:

Romney said of Obama, “he wants another stimulus, he wants to hire more government workers. He says we need more firemen, more policemen, more teachers. Did he not get the message of Wisconsin? The American people did. It’s time for us to cut back on government and help the American people.”

State and local governments have been forced to layoff mass amounts of teachers, firefighters, and police officers because budget crunches have led to school closures and the elimination of public safety departments. That has hurt the unemployment situation (which Romney also criticizes), considering the unemployment rate would be a full point lower without the 700,000 layoffs.

Romney’s honesty isn’t a new position for him or the GOP — he’s called for more government layoffs since the beginning of his campaign. But it’s yet another indication that Romney is more interested in continuing the GOP’s ideological battle against government instead of curing the ills that are plaguing the American economy.

During a press conference Friday, President Obama noted accurately that layoffs at the state and local government level have hurt the economy as it slowly recovers from the Great Recession. “The big challenge we have in our economy right now is state and local government hiring has been going in the wrong direction,” he said.

Later in the day, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) responded by saying that the firing of government workers means things are going in “the right direction,” as reported by CBS’ Rebecca Kaplan:

Christie just went after Obama for presser line about state and local hiring not being high enough. “That’s the right direction,” he says.

— Rebecca Kaplan (@Rebecca_CBSNJ) June 8, 2012

The public sector has shed more than 700,000 jobs since President Obama took office, making it the worst three year stretch for public employment since records have been kept. And it’s in Republican states that the bulk of the cutbacks occurred. If the public sector had grown over that period at the same rate that it grew under Republican Presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, the unemployment rate would be a full point lower.

Christie is not along amongst the GOP in calling for laying off more public sector workers, despite the detrimental effect that it has on the economy. In fact, GOP Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R) responded to the latest jobs report, which was disappointing by all accounts, by claiming that public sector job growth was harming the recovery.

The Republican nominee for Gabby Giffords’ old congressional seat declared this week that he’s willing to let interest rates on student loans double on July 1 because Congress should “deal with the huge problems right now” instead.

Jesse Kelly, who gained notoriety after hosting an M-16 shooting event in 2010 to “remove” Giffords from her seat, was asked on MSNBC Wednesday about student loan interest rates, which are set to double next month. Kelly tepidly said he wanted to fix the interest rates, but then declared that he didn’t want to take up the issue until after Congress had dealt with the Bush tax cuts and the debt ceiling. The solution, according to Kelly, was to let the student loan rates double now, then “deal with that retroactively.”

TODD: First of all, are you in favor of trying to fix the interest rate on student loans so that it does not double?

KELLY: I am in favor of it, but I am in favor of taking care of that after we take care of the most important things right now, which is stopping the Obama tax increases, that’s making sure we don’t increase the debt ceiling without spending concessions. It’s things like that that the Congress needs to be sinking its teeth into right now.

TODD: So you would let it double? Because it’s going to double on July 1st? Let it double now, deal with it later?

KELLY: What I can say is I say the same thing the Speaker of the House is saying right now. Deal with that retroactively, deal with the huge problems right now.

Watch it:

The Bush tax cuts won’t expire until the end of 2012, and we will not hit the debt ceiling until a few months into 2013. If Kelly wants to wait until those other issues are resolved before dealing with student loans, rates could double for at least nine months. In that time, needy students could wind up paying as much as $750 in added interest payments.

Whether or not Kelly gets to put his plan into action will be determined next week. Voters in Arizona’s 8th congressional district will have a special election on Tuesday, June 12 to fill the remainder of Giffords’ term.

Two days after the White House said it would not extend the Bush tax cuts for the rich under any circumstances, multiple Democratic senators refused to rule out the same scenario.

Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill (D) and Florida Sen. Bill Nelson (D), both of whom are facing re-election fights this fall, refused to take a position on ending the cuts when asked Thursday, The Hill reports:

“If you want to do something in the spirit of compromise, you don’t start out by saying, ‘I refuse to do this’ or ‘I refuse to do that,’ ” said McCaskill. “It’s not my preference to extend tax cuts to multimillionaires — that’s not my preference — but I want to keep every option open in the spirit of compromise.”

Said Nelson, “I can’t get into a hypothetical.”

According to The Hill, Arkansas Sen. Mark Pryor (D) was also undecided on the issue.

Ending the Bush tax cuts for the rich, however, should be an easy decision. Republicans argue that letting the tax cuts expire will hurt job growth, even though evidence shows lower taxes on the rich don’t lead to job creation and GOP lawmakers have willingly admitted that the Bush tax cuts didn’t lead to a spike in jobs.

Republican intransigence on tax revenues nearly pushed the country over the brink of default last summer and caused the first credit downgrade in American history, but ending the Bush tax cuts — which cost $36 billion a year while benefiting just 2 percent of Americans — gives the country a chance to raise revenues now that will reduce the debt and help avoid painful spending cuts to vital programs.