Want Safety Nets? Then Support Economic Development

The biggest hindrance to our country’s long-term economic growth is that too many people don’t seem to want it. Yet, they believe that somehow there will always be enough money for everyone, regardless of their efforts or talents, to be housed, fed, healthy and educated. Not only that, but everyone who does make a reasonable effort is then entitled to live the American Dream.

I actually believe in both the safety net and the American Dream. However, we cannot sustain these goals without economic growth—and we will not have sufficient economic growth unless we make it a priority. Far too often projects are blocked by the same people who are most concerned about unemployment, livable wages, caring for the needy, providing quality education and so on. You can’t have it both ways.

Here are a few examples of what I’m talking about:

1) There’s an empty convenience/gas mart location on the Oakdale side of Highway 36 and Century. It’s been empty for quite awhile. Somebody wanted to buy it and put a pawnshop there. That pawnshop would create economic growth and tax revenue. But apparently people would rather give up that revenue than allow a business they feel is “beneath” the location (which, by the way, ain’t that great).

2) A new Stillwater bridge would create economic growth for the northeast metro and western Wisconsin. But apparently, people are more concerned with the view from the river and maintaining "green space" than economic growth and tax revenue.

3) Construction of a national nuclear waste facility in Nevada has been blocked for decades due to environmental concerns for a place where hardly anything can live anyway. Wind turbines and power lines are blocked because birds run into them.  Hydroelectric power is blocked because fish can’t swim upstream.

4) Billions of dollars of marijuana is imported and sold here without us realizing any economic benefit. We’d rather let Mexican drug lords get rich than legalize use of another recreational drug.

5) We can’t sell liquor past 10 p.m., buy cars on Sunday, or bet on football games because well, it’s just wrong.

6) We can’t build bigger roads because more cars might go by someone's house.  We can't build more runways because more planes might fly over someone's head.

None of these examples are ideal economic development. But then neither was mining iron ore on the Range, building the Hoover Dam, ending prohibition, or putting Interstate 94 through the middle of Rondo. In those days, economic development was given priority. This created the wealth necessary to fund the social programs so many of us now defend. We can’t continue trying to live off of those same investments. The government has already borrowed trillions to keep up the ruse. We either get serious about growth, or the safety net and the American Dream will disappear at an ever increasing rate. It’s time to suck it up and make some money.