Washington operating under alternate reality

Perhaps the federal government is operating in an alternate reality. 

A March 5 article in the Wall Street Journal, “Local Governments Keep on Paring Payrolls,” looks at how states and localities last month shed a combined 30,000 jobs, and payroll pressures will become more pronounced as federal stimulus dollars soon run out.

But the last paragraph is a telling look at how Washington manages its budgets in a fiscal crunch: Federal government employment has risen by 99,000 workers since the beginning of the Great Recession.