Circling the Wagons

Just another number story, or is it?

Dennis Wyatt, the managing editor of The Manteca Bulletin is probably right. California’s state government took redevelopment agency money, $2 billion, to save 55,000 state jobs. He further states that RDA money, had it gone to private sector jobs in other economically depressed areas of the state, would have saved 170,000 private sector jobs. He cites “the state’s own multipliers” as the source for that number. He says the state hired 21,000 workers and cut 1,667 jobs, which he says is just 600 more cuts than the state’s fourth largest city, San Jose, has cut its workforce. Mr. Wyatt is probably right there, too.

The reason I bring up the Sacramento and the state of California numbers is this: as we spiral down and money gets dearer and dearer for us all (well, most of us) the backbiting increases. I would respect his comparisons more if the “the state’s own multiplier” was applied to the 55,000 state jobs. Their salaries help keep other people in work, too. Maybe it does not add up in Fresno, Stockton, Bakersfield and Modesto, but certainly it counts in Sacramento.

If it is a matter of robbing Peter to pay Paul remember the real thieves are the ones who force us to pit Peter and Paul against each other. Peter and Paul were doing OK until the plug was pulled on the instruments of mass financial destruction. When the financial terrorists on Wall Street blew up the world financial system, they received history’s largest government bailout.

I would invite Mr. Wyatt to Albany for a few weeks. If he can find our legislators in session there, and observe them for a time, he would run back to California and thank his lucky stars.

Within the past year, I listened to a radio report on the New York State legislature. The report I heard noted my state’s legislators are each allowed to keep a photographer on staff, mostly so they can have pictures taken with their constituents at the many social and official functions. The radio reporter asked a California legislator how his state handles this chore, and after being told how his counterparts in New York do it, the legislator laughed and said they have one camera and pass it around. Legislators and staffers take turns snapping the pictures of each other and constituents.

The problem is that Mr. Wyatt is right in so many ways; the government in Sacramento seems to have circled its wagons to protect their own. The really sad part is that they felt forced to do so. We, the long-term unemployed, are the ones they are protecting themselves against.