Job creation is No. 1 issue

The 2011-12 election cycle is underway. During the next 16 months, we will elect a slew of officials at the federal, state and local levels - from the president to city councilors and nearly everything in between.

Conventional wisdom has it that the three most important attributes of a parcel of real estate are location, location and location. Similarly, the three most important issues for this election cycle are jobs, jobs and jobs.

Certainly, there are other issues of importance, but concern about jobs must predominate. The creation of new jobs has ramifications quite beyond the extremely important mission of removing people from unemployment rolls. More jobs means less government expenditures on the unemployed, more tax revenue and more consumer spending - employed people pay more taxes and spend more on goods and servicesin - in short, a more vibrant economy.

Unemployment seems stuck at around 9 percent nationally and around 11 percent in the Flathead Valley. Government figures reveal that new job creation is very slow. In fact, taking into account those who have given up looking for work and those who are involuntarily working part time, the true unemployment figure locally may well be in the 25 percent range - very close to Great Depression percentages. And that does not count those who have moved away because they have given up hope here.

The bitter truth is that the great majority of jobs lost in the recent downturn won't come back any time soon, if ever. Our local economy was heavily dependent on construction, and for the most part those jobs are gone for a good long while. Housing experts now predict that the housing slump may well last for the better part of this decade, perhaps another six or seven years. It's very difficult to envision another construction boom in the near or intermediate term.

Nationally, we are in the final phases of a transition from a manufacturing-based economy to an information-based economy. Yesterday's jobs are quite different from tomorrow's jobs, and those who believe that yesterday's jobs will return in a significant way are living in a fool's paradise.

Where do we look for new jobs? Clearly, government does not create them. State and local governments have budget issues and are in a contraction mode. And recent history clearly establishes that government decrees, incantations and stimulus programs do little to create jobs. Big business is in a contraction mode as well. Statistics show that Fortune 500 companies have shed more jobs than they have created in the recent past.

When the ecomony booms, new jobs come from small and mid-sized businesses. They are the true engines of growth in our economy. While government cannot create these jobs, there is much that the government can do to foster fertile soil conditions in which the businesses can take root and grow.  

For example, many state and local governments have created ingenious tax incentives to attract these businesses. Some provide retraining for workers to acquire the necessary skills to fill the new jobs information-based businesses bring. Government can provide a welcoming, non-hostile, non-threatening regulatory climate. Many state and localities outside our area are taking these and other steps with success.

In the coming weeks and months, numerous candidates will come forward seeking your vote.  Rather than asking if these candidates are Republican, Democrat, liberal or conservative, voters should assess them by their willingness and ability to attract jobs.

If a candidate is an incumbent or is a present office holder seeking election to a different office, voters should ask questions such as what concrete steps has this person done to create jobs in his or her present position, and have these steps been successful, or are they nothing more than meaningless political rhetoric?

If the answer to such questions is "none" or "not much," then the candidate probably does not deserve your vote. For those candidates who are not presently office holders, the questions should be modified to ask what concrete steps does this candidate propose to create jobs during his or her term in office, and  are these steps likely to be successful?

Of course, every candidate for every office will say that he or she favors job creation. Anything else is tantamount to opposing motherhood. But it is up to voters to ignore cheap, meaningless campaign rhetoric and carefully examine substance. If a candidate advocates job growth but has done absolutely nothing to create jobs, and has in fact consistently endorsed policies and practices that discourage job growth, that candidate is not deserving of our vote and ought to seek employment elsewhere.

The sad truth is that the political class is by and large pretty much clueless about such matters. Few of them have any experience with job creation or have the slightest idea how to create jobs. Most would flunk miserably a final exam in Economics 101.  

A century or so ago, the journalist H.L. Mencken observed that democracy is based on the belief that ordinary people know what they want and, for better or for worse, deserve to get it good and hard. 

It is up to us as voters to make all candidates answerable and accountable, especially about issues that are vital to our well-being. Those who have done little or nothing for job creation or who have advocated policies whose inevitable result was to discourage job creation do not deserve our votes, and if we vote them in again we will (in Mencken's words) deserve to get it good and hard.

Bill Halama lives in Whitefish.