Megan Carpentier February 16, 2011, 9:25 AM

At a press conference yesterday, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) told reporters that if some federal jobs were lost as a result of his proposed spending cuts, “so be it.”

How many jobs are we talking about? According to federal budget expert Scott Lilly at the Center for American Progress, Boehner’s proposed spending cuts could kill almost 1 million jobs.

Lilly ran the numbers for Dana Milbank of the Washington Post:

using the usual multipliers, [Lilly] calculated that the cuts - a net of $59 billion in the last half of fiscal 2011 - would lead to the loss of 650,000 government jobs, and the indirect loss of 325,000 more jobs as fewer government workers travel and buy things. That’s nearly 1 million jobs - possibly enough to tip the economy back into recession.

Milbank additionally notes that Boehner’s spending plan includes some $450 million for the development of a second engine for the F-35 Joint Striker — which is done in a GE plant in Boehner’s district that employs 7,000 people. Lilly wrote Sunday that, despite Boehner’s promises to end earmarks, the job-saving money for the engine’s development looks a lot like an earmark.

Center for American Progress, Jobs, John Boehner, Spending