Jobs, jobs, jobs.
How
do we provide enough jobs for the working people of Wyoming?
A
month ago in this space, I wrote about the state’s economy and how to create economic
development. It spurred a variety of interesting comments from all over the
state. Here are just a few:
Retired
Publisher Jim Hicks of Buffalo says: “Buffalo has spent thousands on Economic
Development, but with almost no results.
“Health care costs in Wyoming are a third
higher than South Dakota. This is probably due to the fact that those
states developed regional health care systems. It`s Sioux Falls, Pierre,
and Rapid City. The rest of the state is served with satellite
facilities. We have a lot of smaller hospitals that struggle to maintain
surgical centers and specialty services that cause them to bleed red ink.”
Attorney and former legislator Tom Lubnau
of Gillette says:
“My theory on government workers is
counter intuitive. Wyoming taxes people from out of state in the
form of mineral taxes, and then spreads the wealth around the state based on
paying government workers. Those government workers spend money in
their local communities, and Wyoming realizes economic development via the
multiplier effect.
“Radically cutting government workers
will have a dramatic ripple effect through the states economy of 3 to 8 times
the government salaries, depending on which economic analysis of the multiplier
effect one believes. The Life Resource Center in Lander is a
perfect example. If one were deciding which government programs to
keep and which ones to cut, the LRC would be the first on the chopping block.
But it cannot be closed for fear of the consequences to the Lander community.
“So
far, the Legislature has been able to kick the can down the road, but I’ve said
in the past, in the battle between perception and reality, reality ultimately
wins, and when it does, it usually hurts.”
Cheyenne
Attorney Larry Wolfe: “You hesitate to put your finger on the real problems: a
unitary political view that stifles ideas and innovation; poor leadership of
all our major institutions - Governor, Legislature, University; a belief that
many people like Wyoming without more people and on the slightly decrepit side;
the fact that we are price takers, not price makers, that our fate is
determined by vast forces beyond our control; an agriculture economy that
exists on federal largess; an economic and tax structure that expects others to
pay our taxes and that resists all changes to a more updated model.”
Central
Wyoming College educator Louisa Hunkerstorm offers: “There is now a statewide
attainment council determining strategy for meeting goals. Our people need to
be more educated for Wyoming to grow or attract new businesses and for our
economy to thrive in a bust-proof way. Those educated people will want to live
in places that have amenities, which is why it`s also important to create
livable communities that are beautiful and have lots of things to do. And we
will need a new tax structure to support all of this; we can`t continue to rely
on taxes from a single, dying industry to support our state.”
Parker Jackson of Mountain View offers
his opinions:
“The
most important point is the size of Wyoming’s government. I have been told that
we have the 2nd largest government footprint in the entire Western
hemisphere-next to Cuba. One key difference is that Wyoming also has one of
the largest sovereign wealth funds. We have $30 Billion in the bank. How much
of that would it take to spark the economy if a portion of it were returned to
the taxpayer?
“What if we had robust trade schools and other specialized institutions of
higher ed that could both compete with and complement UW, which has a
stranglehold on higher education and therefore the labor market in Wyoming?”
Former
publisher Dave Simpson says: “Here in Cheyenne, from what I`ve seen over the
last 13 years, we`re pretty much recession-proof. The only thing better than
being a college town is being a state capital, with a military base thrown in,
the railroad, warehouses attracted by the intersection of two interstates, and
pretty effective economic development efforts. We’re also benefiting from the crazy
Colorado Front Range growth.
“Folks move up here for the lower taxes
and to get away from the horrible traffic on I-25. I have a neighbor with a
cabin here, who lives in Denver. He says fighting the traffic almost makes it
not worth coming up.”
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