Continuing Education

Reading this Minneapolis Star Tribune article I'm about to fisk brought back memories of the sanctimonious Jim Boyd, then deputy editor of the Editorial pages.  Newspapers have editors and fact checkers he would tell us, gate keepers that we bloggers didn't have.  And yet piece after piece would slide past those goalies, as did Closing the Skill Gap Key to Solving Job Crisis in Wednesday's (10/26) edition.  As it should, the lead paragraph portends what follows.

The key to jump-starting Minnesota's economy may lie in how well it tackles a bedeviling problem: a growing skills gap that has left some Minnesotans unfit for jobs that employers have to offer.

This is a political press release, not a serious news article.  The journalist's big government point of view is plainly visible.  Not seeing anything he disagrees with, there was no need to seek alternative views or review past attempts to do what's proposed today.  There isn't a word of skepticism.

Even the diction is that of a political piece.  Jump-starting for example is trite, and an oblique reference to President Obama's 2009 stimulus plan.  An economy does not tackle problems per se.  Calling some Minnesotans "unfit" instead of simply unqualified adds unwanted bad connotations but wanted reaction to justify action.  Notice the bureaucratic phrasing, talking of "the key" and a "skills gap" that doesn't just widen, it grows. Notice also the assumed context, that this is a local problem when so obviously a mostly national problem.  The key to solving that of course is voting out President Obama in 2012.

Governor Mark Dayton has been holding summits around the state, asking what can be done to spur job growth.  The reporter seems unconcerned about Dayton's record, unaware of his modus operandi: I Bought, I Sat, I Left.

The consensus: Businesses need help getting access to capital and new markets, and the gap between available workers and jobs must be narrowed.

To that end, Dayton has made $ 100 million available for small business loans but that hardly matters if there are no customers let alone new markets to purchase the goods and services those small businesses provide.  And once again, that "gap" word is misused, at best a statistic, a symptom, not an actual cause of unemployment as this phrasing implies.  But as I said, this is a political piece as the next paragraph so clearly shows.

Years of recession have left the state with persistent budget deficits, deep program cuts and billions of dollars in loans. More red ink means more cuts and testy political fights with Republican legislators who have demonstrated an ironclad resistance to tax increases that Dayton wants.

That's right, it's the Republicans' fault, not all those DFL double digit spending increases the past 20 years.  A threadbare coalition led by Governor Pawlenty and House Minority Leader Marty Siefert held off most of what could have been a staggering $ 7 billion tax increase.  Dayton initially wanted the same, a $ 7 billion increase in general fund spending.  Of course, we'd be hurting all the more had these massive increases passed.

Where this is all going is worker education, as in retraining.  We have a glut (another demeaning term) of unemployed, now unqualified workers says the article.  Does that include all the construction workers sidelined by the housing collapse?  We have to invest, spend more, faster, oh but smarter don't you know.  All it takes is money, somebody else's money, like from those who didn't major in eco-tourism and who took it on themselves to keep their skill set current.  You needn't have aptitude or a career interest, just go back to school.  It's reverse "Flashdance" where the unemployed dancer finds her new career as a welder. 

If Minnesota's leaders are worried about a decline in the quality of Minnesota's workforce, how about taking a page from the liberal notebook and go after the root causes, first among them our public K-12 schools?  We're a national leader in achievement gaps and 1 in 3 "graduates" need remedial work when they attend college.  The reporter might wonder why if post secondary enrollment is so high, why are so many graduates finding themselves immediately in that "glut" of "unfit" workers?  If these problems persist because we won't confront the unions and bureaucrats and yes, Democrats involved, nothing else matters.

Comments

[Hiram]

Actually, I largely agree with Speed on this. Possibly because of the suggestive nature of the format, Dayton or perhaps the pro-business Star Tribune bought into a conservative talking point, that the recession and high unemployment is somehow the fault of workers.

[The Big Stink]

Is it the taxpayer's responsibility to give me the money to open a business? I must have missed that in my reading of the Constitution.

[Hiram]

Is it the taxpayer's responsibility to give me the money to open a business?

No.

I must have missed that in my reading of the Constitution.

The constitution isn't a policy document. It doesn't address the issue one way or another.

[The Big Stink]

The operative word here is "responsibility." Does the state have the authority to allocate taxpayer funds for private enterprises? Should it? That's a great debate we ought to engage in. It's too bad we can't bring it up for a vote so the people can tell our elected officials how they feel about the theft, er, allocation, of their money towards dubious, private enterprises like baseball, football, casinos and other distractions the private marketplace ought to be solely engaged in.

[Hiram]

Does the state have the authority to allocate taxpayer funds for private enterprises?

Yes.

Should it?

Depends on the situation.

[The Big Stink]

Which businesses? Explain to me, please, which for-profit businesses ought to receive the oxygen of taxpayer money. I want to know because I'm going to tell you there are very few private businesses (any?) which ought to receive any taxpayer money. It is this commingling of public/private missions which is creating this hole we're digging ourselves. The government and the private sector need to be segregated for a very strategic reason - they are a corrupting influence on the other.

[Hiram]

Private schools.

[The Big Stink]

And, stadia? How about we take the two billion dedicated to public financing of stadia for private business and put that money into a pool into which citizens could opt into private school tuition for their kids?

Novel thought.

[J. Ewing]

I think we are confusing the use of taxpayer money to engage in the legitimate purchase of goods and services from a private business for the "general welfare" and the non-specific subsidizing of a private business. When government pays a private contractor to build a road, that's legitimate. If government spends money to educate kids (a general public good), it doesn't matter one bit where it is spent, private or otherwise. Now, if government builds a school building, hires teachers and [lots of] administrators, and then most of the kids end up functionally unemployable, is THAT legitimate? I say no.

[Hiram]

And, stadia?

Different question. I am very much in favor of public support for private schools. The case for stadiums is less clear to me.

"I think we are confusing the use of taxpayer money to engage in the legitimate purchase of goods and services from a private business for the "general welfare" and the non-specific subsidizing of a private business."

Not so much confusion as a a basic refusal to think about what government does. Of course government deals with private for profit business all the time. Of course, what government does affects the private sector. What government does, assuming that it follows the appropriate legal procedures, and doesn't violate any laws is always legitimate. The question is whether what is under consideration is wise.

Whether we should build schools, libraries, stadiums or rocket ships to the moon are all policy issues, the things we elect legislators and governors and even the odd president or two, to decide.

[J. Ewing]

I agree with all of that. :-0

Public support for a Gophers stadium I can understand. Public support for the Metrodome I can even understand, since all manner of taxpayer-supported events go on there, and other kinds of "cultural events" take place. I favor, within reasonable bounds, taxpayer support of arts and culture FACILITIES, as being an important part of a society. I do NOT support taxpayers actually funding the running of these facilities. That should be done by a non-profit organization, supported by voluntary contributions and participation fees.

On that basis I could see giving the Vikes the Metrodome, but not subsidizing a new Stadium for them. My counter example would be the fact that, when Best Buy wanted to move to Bloomington, the city kicked private owners off the land and gave it to them, and the state built them a nice new freeway interchange. They even got a tax break for 20 years. But as far as I know they didn't get millions of dollars to subsidize building a headquarters building for a private enterprise