Tag: Economics

Government and Private Enterprise

Steven Woolley1 Comment
The local state public affairs channel featured an interview with two legislative leaders discussing the recently passed budget that contains drastic cuts in social services and education while retaining tax breaks for businesses.  Contrary to network interview shows, the interviewer and two legislators conversed in rational, respectful words of ordinary volume with very few interruptions of each other.  
One of the legislators argued the standard conservative line that only private enterprise creates jobs and wealth; government is an obstacle to both and must be restrained as much as possible.  It’s a shame that social services and education had to be cut, but the budget had to be balanced, and the stage set for economic growth. 
It makes sense if you don’t think about it too much.  The argument sets up private enterprise and government as opposites, or, perhaps, opponents in a win-lose game.  While that resonates with some people, it’s patently false.  Private enterprise and government exist in a symbiotic relationship.  Establishing the proper balance between the two is the work of political negotiation in which the reality of that symbiotic relationship is acknowledged and understood.
There are three basic sets of jobs that contribute to the economic prosperity of the state.  One set includes jobs connected to the production of goods and services that are sold to others elsewhere in the world.  These exports bring new money into the region adding to our wealth.  The second set includes jobs connected to providing goods and services to others in the region.  The efficiency of these jobs is measured in part by how many times a dollar brought in from exports can be spent before it disappears.  The third set includes jobs connected to the creation and maintenance of the infrastructure that make the others possible.  Some of the jobs exist in the private sector and some exist in the public sector, but all contribute to the economic wellbeing of the state.  
Job and wealth creation require a physical and regulatory infrastructure that only government can provide.  Taxes levied to provide that infrastructure are not a drain on the private sector, but an investment in it.  Among the most important parts of that infrastructure are the health, safety and education of the people.  Unregulated private enterprise has proved itself incapable of managing for either the public good or the long term good of its employees.  Clearly government has at least two roles. One is to craft the environment in which private enterprise can flourish. The other is to assure that that environment provides for and protects the well being of its people.
It’s a tough balancing act.  Regulate but not over regulate.  Tax but not over tax, and tax fairly.  
I think that in Washington State we have gone too far in piling the tax burden on those least able to carry it while letting some corporate interests and the very wealthy off the hook.  We have gone too far in cutting social services while failing to give serious consideration to tax increases.
We have failed to recognize that government is indeed a generator of jobs and economic growth.

Federally Underwritten Rugged Individualism

Steven Woolley1 Comment
Eastern Washington has a reputation as politically conservative, a repository of hard core small government types who are thrilled at the prospect of slashing the federal government and its “creeping socialism.”  Congressional Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers reigns with an attractive smile, bland platitudes about veterans and farmers, and floor votes as instructed by Cantor and Boehner.  
What I find curious about this mythology of prideful, self reliant individualism is the amount of federal investment that created and sustains the way of life in the intermountain Pacific Northwest.  The Northern Pacific and Great Northern railroads opened the region to large scale commerce.  Neither of them could have been built without enormous federal land grants, subsidies and armed protection.  Paved highways and rural electrification were financed mostly by eastern taxpayers.  The taming of the Columbia and Snake rivers with scores of locks and dams provided water to turn desert into cropland, barging for grain shipments to the coast, and an overabundance of relatively inexpensive hydropower.  Recent half hearted thoughts about taking down some of the dams to improve fish habitat have been met with outrage, and signs posted on buildings declaring “SAVE OUR DAMS” along side posters for ultra conservative political candidates.
Farmers, proud of their rugged individualism, are suspended above the roughest market forces by crop insurance, set asides, subsidies, conversion of cropland to prairie grass, expert counsel from county agents, research funded through land grant universities, and dozens of other programs all financed through the federal government.  Most of our grain crops are marketed overseas helped, in part, by aggressive trade negotiating at the federal level.  It doesn’t keep farming from being a risky business, physically and emotionally demanding in every way.  There is nothing easy about making one’s living on the farm or ranch.  Yet the farm community is the strongest supporter of small government thinking.  I don’t understand how one can be both dependent on the work of an active federal government and dismissive of it.  
What else do we depend on?  A big Air Force base near Spokane just happens to use many Boeing made products, each the result of a government contract.  Boeing, of course, is on the other side of the mountains, the wet side, where all the liberals live, but we like the money, airplanes and software that come from over there, and we don’t complain about them paying most of the taxes.   Speaking of planes, air transportation is important to us, so we fight hard for funding of rural air service subsidies.  Our paved highways are wearing out.  They need to be replaced.
You get the point.  I would not call any of this hypocrisy because I don’t think it is intentional.  On the contrary, the work of an active federal government has been so tightly woven into the fabric of daily life that I think it has become invisible.  The very real need to manage our public spending in a more responsible way is well known and vigorously supported.  What is not known, or remotely understood, is that some of the cost, the pain, will have to be borne by those who do not even know how dependent and indebted they have become on the largesse of federal spending.

Preserving State Wealth by Preserving the Wealthy? I’ve got a better idea.

Steven Woolley2 Comments
My wife says that I get really morose on Good Fridays, and that probably explains this post.  Why else would I be writing about state finances instead of atonement?
I’ve been involved in an interesting exchange of e-mails with my state senator, a Republican who used to be centrist but has tilted farther to the right in recent years.  The issue pivots on how to restructure the state’s budget to be more fiscally responsible. It’s pretty much the same set of problems facing most states these days.  The State of Washington has a long history of significant operating fund deficits as measured by tax revenue against expenditures.  They have been financed, and the budget balanced, by a combination of federal monies and fund transfers.  With federal money on the decline, something has to be done to bring expenditures closer to locally raised revenues.  The last time they met was in 1997, and I haven’t checked to see if that was just a one time event.  
Washington does not have an income tax, so state revenues are dependent on sales taxes, a gross receipts tax on businesses, and various fees.  The state portion of the sales tax is 6.5%.  The gross receipts tax rate is around .005% except for services at about .02%.  No doubt someone will correct me if I’m wrong about these rates.  Anyway, buried in the tax code are a number of credits and exemptions enacted over the years to benefit particular industries and companies.
Washington also allows for initiatives and referenda, and an ultraconservative, small government character named Tim Eyman has mastered the art of authoring initiatives that not only cut taxes and fees, they also shackle the ability of local and state legislators to raise taxes except by super majority votes or public referenda.  His initiatives were an easy sell for several years.  As one of my friends once said; “Lower taxes? Who wouldn’t vote for that?  It’s a no brainer.”  He has less success these days, now that some of the effects have begun to show themselves in declining levels of service and maintenance.
Obviously it’s a tough issue that cannot be resolved without pain.  My argument has been that, unless the legislature is willing to look at both revenue and costs, the outcome is likely to lead the state down a hill that first hurts those who are least able to defend themselves, and then heads toward a lower standard of living for all.  My senator’s argument has been that our tax system is just fine, we raise enough money, and the various credits and exemptions are all job creating incentives that are working the way they are supposed to, so our entire focus must be on reducing expenditures.  I don’t know enough about the credits and exemptions to judge with certainty, but my guess is that’s a lot of baloney.  He’s also begun to spout the Wisconsin line that greedy, uncooperative public employees are the cause of our problems.  I guess he figures that will appeal to the right wingers, and he’s right, but, I think, morally wrong.
There’s a line going around on Facebook that nails it well.  It reads: Remember when teachers, public employees, planned parenthood, and PBS crashed the stock market, wiped out half of our 401Ks, took trillions in TARP money, spilled oil in the Gulf of Mexico, gave themselves billions in bonuses, and paid no taxes? Yeah, me neither.
Of course we need to rein in spending and use our available resources in a more efficient and intentional way.  It’s not that the state has wasteful programs.  To the contrary, it’s hard to find anything that is not contributing to essential needs.  But the legislature enacted too many good ideas with no clear idea of how they would be paid for over the long term, and with too much faith in a booming economy and federal revenue sharing.  
We also need to take a hard look at revenues.  I am among the few in Washington who favor an income tax as a far more equitable way to raise public funds.  It seems unlikely that will happen anytime soon.  But we could make an audit of the various exemptions granted to businesses with an eye toward making the wealthiest and most powerful interests participate with the poorest and least powerful interests in the restructuring of the state’s finances.  We could, but we won’t.  The legislators don’t have the courage to do it.  
What it all comes down to is that we are banking on the return of booming economy driven by Boeing, Microsoft and high wheat prices to raise revenues.  It’s worked before and it might work again.  In the meantime, small government right wingers are rejoicing in their opportunity to return the quality of life in the state to where it belongs, the late 19th century before radicals like Teddy Roosevelt started messing things up.
I’ve got an idea.  Why don’t we take all the sales tax revenue and bet it at the roulette tables in the Indian casinos!  Better yet, we could go down to Oregon and invest it all in Power Ball tickets!

Ignorant Wisdom Shamelessly Shared

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A number of my older friends remain apoplectic about Communism and the Communists who rule in yet a few countries.  The loss of Vietnam to the Communists of the North is a sore spot.  So, for some, is the Communism of China, especially since they have become our chief competitors for the title of Number One World Power.  I think they are way off base.
I cannot claim much experience in either place, having spent only a few days in Vietnam last month, and a few weeks in China over the last several years, plus the observations of our youngest daughter and family who have lived in Asia for over fifteen years.  However, there is nothing like the hubris of a tourist to encourage one to share one’s knowledge and wisdom, so here goes.
What I have observed is that whatever Communism is in Vietnam and China, it is not Marxist.  Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Mao would never recognize it.  The robber barons of late nineteenth century America might.  As one young guide put it, “We Communists are ardent Capitalists.”  I don’t think he said ardent, but whatever word he used meant the same thing.  Private enterprise flourishes.  Even the state owned companies operate as much as they can as if they were private, and in a sense they are because the state is the private arena of the party members.
The Chinese are years ahead of everyone else, at least in the Eastern half of the country, in the development of almost everything, and they are embarrassed when western tourists discover pockets of old China that tourists are not supposed to encounter.  For instance, across the street from the Ritz Carlton in Shanghai is an imposing relic of Soviet “friendship” in the form of an enormous, rambling 1953 Russian built replica of a Czarist palace now advertised as a venue for important meetings and exhibitions.  Tourists are driven by but not invited in.  We went in.  The interior is a rundown wreck of a place.  The regular and ordinary exhibition that consumes tens of thousands of square feet is a traditional Chinese peasants‘ market where the poor people of Shanghai can buy food, clothing and stuff that is cheap, maybe not too fresh, and certainly not of the quality of the name brand stores just down the street.  Among the many thousands jamming elbow to elbow through the aisles between stalls, we were the only non-Chinese present.  We asked the Ritz Carlton staff about it.  They, with some embarrassment, denied any knowledge of such a market.  Later on we hired a private guide to take us into parts of Shanghai new to us.  He also knew nothing about it.  After all, how could the most technologically advanced city in the world, and one of its wealthiest, have such a place?
Vietnam was different, at least from our brief exposure to it, because old Vietnam is so obviously present.  Yet everywhere we looked were signs of rapid change.  Ports are filled with ships surrounded by cranes and new construction that will double and triple port capacity.  Just outside are factories of many Western corporations along with huge empty concrete pads where more factories will be built.  Major cities are growing skyscrapers, condo developments and luxury hotels.  European and American company logos are displayed everywhere.  Our Southern guide was openly dismissive of Northerners and held the unearned wealth of party members in contempt.  Our Northern guide was more discreet but agreed that unless one could figure out a way to get into the party it would be hard to become rich. 
Both countries are single party states, and the party is the Communist Party, keeping in mind that the Vietnamese and Chinese are uneasy neighbors under the best of circumstances.  How one becomes a member of the relatively small number who make up the parties in each state is somewhat of a mystery to me, but it appears to be related to family histories and generational legacies.  In other words, they are oligarchies.  Party membership assures one of rank, prestige, an easy path to wealth and a lifestyle set apart from the ordinary people.   In China the party is large enough for there to be internal debates that would never be confused with democracy but at least display a vigorous working out of compromise.  Local and provincial jurisdictions are in open competition with one another, establish policies that are sometimes at odds with one another, and have more public debates about what those policies should be.  That should be a warning to the oligarchs.  
History tells us that oligarchies are inherently unstable and seldom last for long, a century or so at most.  I probably will not live long enough to learn what happens in those two countries when their oligarchies are no longer able to rule as they do now, but in my imagination I envision something a little like a fourteenth or fifteenth century English parliament with commoners discovering a way to assert their place in the political arena.      

Life in Uzbeckistan

Steven Woolley1 Comment
I have refrained from commenting on Glenn Beck for two reasons.  First, everyone else has already said most everything there is to say about him.  Second, I dislike giving him any more publicity that he already has.  But this last act of demagoguery got to me.  
Under the veneer of honoring veterans, restoring America’s traditional values and bringing us back to God, lies his recorded history of race baiting, paranoid, fear driven and frequently ignorant political propagandizing that, in the name of American democracy, points in the direction of autocracy, oligarchy, and white supremacy, under the banner of a bastardized version of Christianity with little regard for the constitutional rights of others.  
We’ve seen this before, much of it in the 1930s and some in the red scare tactics of the early 1950s.  The nation often appeared to be teetering on the brink, not of a more limited democratic government, but of a stronger autocratic government able to overcome those whom some believed cannot be trusted to govern themselves through representative democracy (see Jefferson’s first inaugural).  It never happened, but is was always scary. 
What troubles me about Beck is the tens of thousands who have bought into his fear mongering; who honestly believe that the country is going down the tubes unless they do something about it.  And, in an obscene turnabout, that which they want to do, in the name of freedom, would accomplish the opposite, and they don’t know it.  For instance, many of them are proud to call themselves libertarians, and libertarianism, as a counterweight to poorly thought out government programs and a reminder of the importance of individual rights, is a good thing.  On the other hand, libertarianism as a guiding principle of government leads directly to oligarchical rule.  Many favor a return to traditional American values that they see in the sentimental light of a Rockwell painting.  But those traditional values carried with them the subjugation of women, the racial superiority of whites, jingoistic nationalism, an emotionally strong but theologically weak patriotic civil religion using the name of Christ, and the power of the people kept out of the hands of the wrong people and in the hands of the right people.
What frightens them most, oddly enough, is that that is exactly what they believe is happening now, and they need to stop it.  They see that power they never had is slipping from their hands into the hands of people who do not look like them, and whom they believe cannot be trusted with power.  They see the orderly, predictable lives that existed only in their imaginations melting away.  They see the freedom of mythical rugged individualism that was theirs to be shared in communities of their own choosing threatened by similar freedoms assumed by others and forced upon them through communities not of their own choosing.  They live in a world of scarcity.  If someone else gets something, anything, it means deprivation for them.  They live in fear of loss in a world of scarcity in which the hard rules of competition for survival mean that some must win and some must lose.  To be a winner one must work hard to assure that the other loses.
How very sad is that?

It’s Back to School Time. Get Out Your Credit Card and Spend.

Steven Woolley1 Comment
NPR’s Sunday morning marketplace show featured a piece on back to school consumer spending.  It’s down, in case you missed it.  What captured my attention was the expressed hope that consumers will soon return to their former spending patterns.  I certainly hope not. 
The bubble burst for lots of reasons, and one of them was the profligate way we spent by racking up credit card debt for what marketing gurus told us were the essentials that one MUST HAVE for back to school, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, winter or spring break, and summer, not to mention the odds and ends of Easter, Fourth of July, Presidents‘ Day, etc.  Nothing from last year would do.  Nothing that failed to meet the test of ‘cool’ or ‘in’ or was not endorsed by the right celebrity would do.  Nothing that reeked of inexpensive or utilitarian would do.  
Those who could (or pretended to be able to) afford it bought the real thing from the right store with the right logo at an ego boosting high price.  Those who knew they couldn’t bought the glitzy knock off designed to fall apart about the time the next season started.  Some of the real things may have been just as cheaply made with the manufacturers wondering if the suckers would ever notice.    
The truly hopeful signs on this morning’s show included the observation that parents were buying things such as basic shoes, basic clothing and the necessary supplies for school based on perceived value for the dollar.  They appear to paying a little more for better quality but not a lot more for marketing hype.  If that trend continues into the many marketing seasons to follow for a few years, it will change our economy at a very fundamental level.
Some businesses built on little more than a name and some advertising will be gone.  Some businesses will have to pare back their offerings to only a couple of products that are currently offered as many that differ only by packaging.  More medium size regional agribusiness operations will replace enormous factory farms, and they will be obligated to demonstrate the quality of their products.  Big box stores will continue to do well, but their expansion will be slowed, and they also will have to demonstrate greater value for the dollar rather than just cheap prices.  That will lead to a resurgence of local operations that can successfully coexist.  It will mean higher prices for goods that last longer and perform better but not inflation.  It will mean more modest profits for the largest firms, but profits nonetheless.  It will mean increased satisfactory economic survival for small businesses.
That America would be healthier, more stable place, with more modest expectations for what a consumer driven economy can generate, and higher expectations for how we can be competitive in a global marketplace.  How likely is it?  Not very, if the marketing experts have their way.  They are not interested in health, modesty or stability.   They are not concerned about a bubble built on credit and debt.  Those who engineered the last bubble and made out like bandits figure they can do it again.  Those who lost their shirts figure they can outsmart it the next time.  Both are supremely confident in their ability to inspire foolish consumer spending through their marketing knowhow.  They may well be right. 

Some Thoughts on The Public Interest

Steven Woolley4 Comments
First a disclaimer.  Last night I wrote a brilliant post on the question of public interest.  My complex argument was bullet proof, the logic impeccable; it was an intellectual masterpiece.  Then I did something to erase the whole thing.  What follows is a mere shadow of what was lost, and humankind will ever be the lesser for it. 
I closed a recent post with the following paragraph:

The point is that individual greed can always be counted on to undermine the public interest if given the chance.  Therefore, the question should not be about limited government, but about effective government, regardless of size, that is capable of striking  the right balance for current and anticipated conditions that both optimizes individual and corporate freedom to act while protecting the public interest.  That, of course, brings us to the next question: What is the public interest?  We will take that up anon, but a quick review of previous posts will point in the right direction.

What is the public interest?  It seems to me that the public interest has to do with the structures, systems and values that define our communities, states, regions and nation.   Each of them is a debatable matter, and debate is essential for us to come to provisional agreements about what is in the public interest for the times and conditions that are present or anticipated soon.  Our foundational documents provide both the basic structures for doing that and the ideals that point in the right direction.  
Those ideals combine a passion for individual rights with limitations to prevent the systemic privileging or oppression of one segment of society over another.  Moreover, our understanding of what constitutes unwarranted privilege or oppression has changed over the years.  The standards of the 18th century cannot do for the 21st.  
My own understanding of the public interest draws a little on John Rawls (1921-2002), and heavily on the work of W. Edwards Deming (1900-1993), a statistician who turned his attention to understanding economic systems in the work place.  One of his principles was that unless a system is structured to give the workers what they need to be successful, it is pointless to hold them accountable for performance.  Transferring that to the realm of the public interest suggests that a society that creates or tolerates conditions that militate against the potential for success in the lives of ordinary citizens cannot then hold those citizens accountable for their failure to do better.  
What conditions are needed for the average citizen to enjoy the potential for success?  I suggest that they include the best in educational opportunity; freedom from oppression, bigotry and prejudice; fair and equitable taxes; fair and equitable courts; fair and equitable access to governmental decision making; public policies that reflect the ideals of stewardship of all resources; fair and equitable access to those resources, and the like.  In other words, the public interest is about the health of the community and the health of the relationships that exist within it.  It is about building up and preserving community.  Perhaps not surprisingly, public policies that strengthen and protect the public interest also promote a robust ethic of individual accountability – a very American value.


Political agendas that emphasize the aggrandizement of power and wealth for those who are already powerful and wealthy are not in the public interest.  Political agendas that emphasize the rights of some individuals to exclude, oppress or otherwise limit the freedom of other individuals are not in the public interest.  Political agendas that absorb national resources for purposes that provide little or no benefit to the building up of the community are not in the public interest.  
Obviously the question of public policy deserves more than a short post, especially a reconstructed one, but it may serve to encourage some thinking and conversation.

Limited Government That Is Out Of The Way

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It’s election time (isn’t it always?), and the political mantra in our district is “limited government.”  I’ve been wondering about that.  What is limited government?  A corollary to that is “get government out of the way,” which is not quite as bad as “government is the problem” but it is from the same song book.  In other news, Target Stores got a little publicity for helping finance a Minnesota television ad favoring the Republican candidate for governor with the tag line “get government out of the way.”   One would presume that after eight years of a conservative governor it would have been moved out of the way of corporate Target, but apparently not far enough.  How far is far enough?
Limited government that is out of the way, that’s what we want?  When I look across the political landscape there is only one candidate who appears to be honest and articulate about what he means by limited government that is out of the way.  Libertarian Rand Paul is very up front about that.  I agree with almost nothing he has to offer, but I deeply respect his honesty about it and his ability to clearly articulate what he means by it.
What I observe is that most others who favor a limited government that is out of the way really support an activist government that will do everything it can to pave the way for corporations to engage in economic activity with as much regard for corporate gain and as little regard for the public welfare as possible.  That agenda is sold as a boon to individuals and small businesses.  It’s just another marketing ploy but it works well and is widely believed.  A valued side bet has to do with privatization, which is sold as returning to the private sector work that has been taken over by the public sector.  What privatization is actually about is to siphon off tax dollars to the private sector to do work for and on behalf of the government.  That is not always a bad thing, but we have seen how easily it is abused by corporate interests that do less work (or unneeded work) at higher costs and lower quality.  Only the Rand Paul’s of the world really want limited government and are clear about what they mean by that.
The point is that individual greed can always be counted on to undermine the public interest if given the chance.  Therefore, the question should not be about limited government, but about effective government, regardless of size, that is capable of striking  the right balance for current and anticipated conditions that both optimizes individual and corporate freedom to act while protecting the public interest.  That, of course, brings us to the next question: What is the public interest?  We will take that up anon, but a quick review of previous posts will point in the right direction.

Dr. Woolley’s Economic Prognostications and Miracle Elixir. Get Yours Now While Supplies Last!

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Economic recovery is slow and consumer confidence wavers.  What’s going on?  I believe it has to do with our collective expectation that economic recovery means returning to the way it was a few years ago, and, hopefully, that will not happen.
Let us recall that the illusion of economic prosperity was fueled by consumers willing to take on enormous debt loads for things they could not afford and did not need.  It was not only the availability of unethically packaged mortgages, it was also the marketing driven belief that if it was new, improved, trendy and available, you deserved to have it.  That goes for everything from granite counter tops to toothpaste and everything in between, especially if it was electronic.
Too many corporate, media and political leaders cannot imagine an economically healthy nation that would be any different from that, and are confused about why those consumers and that kind of consumption are so late in returning.  What happened to the efficacy of our marketing skills? 
Something is changing in American society.  With any luck it will be a change toward a society that does not feel compelled to be the richest or most powerful nation on earth, is cognizant of it’s obligation to be stewards of the natural and economic environment respecting the past but committed to endowing future generations with good things, and focussed on education and health as primary resources to be nurtured.
I would like to think that the American public has gained a new respect for the idea of the commonweal and a commitment to work together for it.  I would like to think that, but I don’t because it would require a recognition that what is good for the collective welfare of the nation is not the same thing as the sum of what appears to be good for each person acting in his or her own self interest, or even in the interests of those closest to them.  Moreover, it would require a recognition that it is not an either/or proposition.  Self interest and the interests of the community live in creative tension, but popular political rhetoric tries to make them separate, unequal and irreconcilable. 
We cannot return to the illusory prosperity of the recent past.  What lies ahead remains unknown.  We will not glide into that future on blades of wisdom and good sense.  We will lurch into it with all the grace of the gangling, petulant, adolescent people that we are.  God help us.

PS  I say this as one whose own retirement well being depends, in large part, on the performance of the stock market.

Pork and Not Pork

Steven Woolley5 Comments
I went on a rant yesterday about organization and reorganization.  I want to continue the theme today about excessive government pork projects.  This morning’s news had an article about the millions funneled into West Virginia by the late Senator Byrd with all best intentions.  His fondest hope was that these many projects would be the engines to lift the state out of its bottom of the heap economic condition.  They didn’t. 
It reminded me of several communities I worked with many years ago.  In one case a reasonably large city that had fallen on rustbelt hard times was represented by an influential member of congress who was able to direct many building projects into the city center and around the county.  They created some high paying but temporary construction jobs, and, when the dust finally settled, what they got were buildings and highways, but the economy was still in the tank.    
The attitude of the community leadership was that unless they got federal and state grants for big projects they were doomed to failure.  For them, the new highway or building was the future, a future that would somehow resurrect the greatness of years gone by.  It was a depressing scene well suited for Faulkner or Williams. 
Obviously I’m masking the city’s identity.  At least thirty years have passed and reports are that it has begun to prosper again in entirely new directions. A smaller but stable community, it has taken advantage of the projects bequeathed to it by adopting a new attitude.  Finally recognizing that their great days of yore are not coming back, they have envisioned a new future for themselves that honors the past without being burdened by it.  Healthcare, education and tourism have become important economic engines that are comfortably yoked with heavier industries that still have a place, albeit a mature and smaller place.  The millionaires of a century ago are gone.  The average family income is modest but solid.  It’s a good place to live and a good place to visit.   
The lesson, if there is one, is that there is nothing inherently bad or porkish about major federally funded building projects as such.  They become pork when they are built just for the sake of building something without a clear vision of how they will be employed for the long term well being of the economic base of the community before they get built.  Visions like that cannot be built on dreams of past glory or an unrealistic future of striking the mother lode.  They must be built on clear thinking that balances the pragmatism with imagination.  Sadly, it appears that did not happen in West Virginia, nor, I suspect, in many other places.  
And, lest my conservative friends in the rural district in which I live rush to jump on the usual harrumphing bandwagon, I have just two words to say: Farm Bill.