Romney thinks there should be fewer cops, firefighters and teachers, he said. Then he tried to rebut the charge that he was opposed to hiring more of those workers, saying:

The former Massachusetts governor, appearing on Fox and Friends Tuesday morning, was asked to respond to charges made by the Obama campaign that he would slash those specific government jobs.

“That’s a very strange accusation. Of course teachers, and firemen, and policemen are hired at the local level and also by states. The federal government doesn’t pay for teachers, firefighters, or policemen. So obviously that is completely absurd,” said Romney.

Oh, really?

Not so fast, Governor Etch-a-Sketch:

Back in the Lyndon Johnson administration, it started paying out Title 1 education funds, and this year, it is slated to spend $14.5 billion under Title 1. The money is meant to help disadvantaged schools. The bulk of it is used for personnel costs.

In 1975, Congress passed the predecessor law to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, designed to improve special education. Programs under IDEA received $11.6 billion in funding in 2012, and much of that money goes to hiring teachers.

In all, the federal government pays for nearly 11 percent of the country’s public school costs.

Okay, but what about cops?

Uncle Sam also funds thousands of police jobs ever since the Community Oriented Policing Services program was created in 1994. In its first eight years, COPS provided about a billion dollars annually, mostly for hiring. In 2010, separate from any stimulus spending, the federal government awarded $298 million for 1,388 officers. It spent $247 million to hire more than 1,000 officers in 2011. About 800 will be hired with $111 million in 2012. The Congressional Research Service estimated that as of January 2011 the program had paid for the hiring of 117,000 officers.

Now, I grant you that Romney may not know the numbers; I didn’t. But I’m pretty sure one of his advisers is supposed to focus on education matters, and that adviser should know that the Feds disburse a lot of money to state and local governments to help them pay for schools.

Governor Romney likes to fire people, he said. Maybe he should start with that education adviser.