I can remember a couple years ago when the Boeing Company was planning the 787 Dreamliner program and where to build the airplane. There was mega competition between our state and a bunch of others. I remember a half dozen state representatives from various states making a case for Boeing building the factory there. Attracting Boeing jobs to their states and the economy created by those jobs is the thing we want for our whole country moving forward with the Trump administration.
The state of Washington was eager to throw in the kitchen sink to keep jobs here while South Carolina made a similar offer and was rewarded with an assembly plant.
Don’t tell me that every manufacturing company in and out of the US isn’t playing that same game. Who is willing to give up the farm for the jobs our company brings when we choose your state or country.
If our government adopts regulatory policies, tax policies and trade policies that encourage businesses to move jobs out of the country, can we be too surprised when they do move to Mexico, China or Viet Nam?
When the goal of our elected officials is to tear down our country in order to build up foreign economies it all makes sense. The New World Order folks are determined to level the playing field and it will happen at the expense of Americans and America. For me, whatever we do needs to consider American interests first, period.
The two sectors of the economy growing in our country are Service and Public Employees. Since we need a robust service sector to take care of us this group cannot be outsourced. We are making it really easy for immigrants (illegal or legal) to get jobs in the service sector. The problem is that they are the lowest paid sector and only insures that the workers remain poor.
The health care industry is one of the fastest growing service sector components, it does include workers in upper income areas, but since it’s closely tied to insurance companies, it isn’t really a free market industry. Consider how many doctors are retiring because of the government and insurance company restraints. Health care is a growth industry, but because of the regulation and insurance it’s not as much a profit center it once was.
The Public Employees range from Police and Fire Fighters, to city, county and state public works employees, transportation workers and many social service agencies. Federal agencies also employ millions of Americans. The good news for these employees is the pay tends to be higher than service sector jobs. The bad news is public employees work for a non-producing segment of the economy. Public agencies rely on the private sector economy to produce the revenues that feed the growth of government agencies. Can you think of any government worker that is paid the minimum wage?
The bottom line is we need a very robust tech segment coupled with a robust manufacturing segment to create the jobs required to have a growing, producing economy that will produce tax revenues to feed government’s needs. The role of government is to be good stewards of the public funds but since they didn’t have to work or sacrifice to make that money, it is often squandered.
The key is not the government, but the private sector businesses that produce the products and services and jobs that make up a healthy economy.
How could NAFTA or any other international trade agreement that encourages American businesses to move their facilities out of the country be good for Americans?
It used to be that there were American companies and foreign companies. Now companies are international or not affiliated with a country; they are looking out for their share-holders first, second, third and last. Privately held American companies are an exception but they represent a small percentage of businesses and a large number of employees.
If we want to grow the American economy, we need to create incentives to retain businesses and jobs here like we did with Boeing while we consider appropriate penalties for companies that move their jobs off shore but want to sell their goods here in America.
The answers are not simple, but since the companies don’t have allegiance to America first then I’m not as likely to cut them slack if their decisions exploit our economy but don’t enhance it.
If Americans believe that they will get a fair shake from any international government or company, they are nuts. We need to fight for our economy even if it means some consumer goods are more expensive. Build American, Employ Americans, Buy American.
No Loss for Words 
Fund the Carnegie at the expense of What?
by Steve DanaLike most of you, I read the article in the Everett Herald about the county’s plan to build the much down-sized court house remodel. I’m happy for the court house workers that they are getting updated facilities they need so badly.
This example in Everett of elected officials recognizing the error of spending $172 million for the original plan and scuttling the deal even though they had already spent millions up to that point can serve us as we look at the Snohomish Carnegie Library project. Snohomish needs to make sure that spending $4-5 million dollars on the old Carnegie is the best use of our limited public funds.
The county council pulled the plug on the project because it was too expensive. What makes their case different from ours is the fact that the project they killed actually served the people working on the county government campus. The common sense elected officials concluded that spending an extra hundred million didn’t make any sense. Even in the face of a critical need.
So, I come back to the decision-making process in Snohomish regarding the Carnegie Library project. There’s no question that there are strong feelings about restoring the old building, but aside from historical aspects, the building will neither serve a constructive purpose in our little town nor fill a critical need. The spending of the public money will be for a vanity project that does not serve a single identified deficiency or person in our town.
I applaud the county council for recognizing the poor judgment of squandering that money when a more sensible alternative was available. I hope elected officials in all our communities vet big budget projects before they get so far into them that they cannot pull out.
I would hope that before we agree to commit public funds to a project, that project must serve a public need first and second the cost must be reasonable in the context of our total budget. One way to fund controversial projects is to put them up for a public vote. If the citizens want to take on bonded debt to pay for the project, then a public vote would confirm that. I would be in favor of that method of funding the Carnegie. Then voters would agree to tax themselves to pay for the project.
All of our communities struggle with their own challenges in meeting the needs of their citizens. Both Lake Stevens and Arlington are living with working libraries that are grossly inadequate for their communities but like our city did, they are doing their fiscal analysis and hopefully concluding that the need justifies the cost. When we built our new library, it made sense because we determined the need justified the expenditure.
Now looking at the old Carnegie building, I see a building that has no functional purpose in our city. At the same time, our finance department is advising us that revenues coming into the city coffers are trending downward and how we must be cautious with our commitments looking out into the future.
The funding source for the Carnegie Library is Real Estate Excise Tax (REET) monies. This money is earmarked for certain kinds of projects; one of which could be restoration of the Carnegie. So technically, it qualifies. But the larger question that should be answered first is “What other projects might this money be used for that actually serve the needs of our city and citizens?”
I would hope the Snohomish City Council would do a thorough budget analysis regarding our REET funds to insure that committing millions to one project won’t handicap us in other parts of the city where there is an actual need.
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