By Adam Pagnucco.
I was a young man when I first heard political consultant James Carville utter one of the most famous lines in political history.
Carville was a political operative, so he uttered that quote in the context of helping Bill Clinton win a presidential election. I am no Carville – I’m a policy researcher by trade. But his framework is a useful starting point for any analysis of local government. Polities with strong economies can afford to pay their bills and establish high living standards, which leads to virtuous cycles of opportunity and prosperity. Polities with weak economies face challenges that are very difficult to overcome. That’s why any discussion of a government initiative – no matter what it is – must start with its economic impact.
I have been worried about the county’s economy ever since I wrote this piece in 2007. Back then, there was an active debate between “pro-growth” people and “slow growth” people. The county’s politics have changed since then. While years ago, many politicians denied that we have economic challenges, they no longer do so. The problem is that while their rhetoric has improved, it’s debatable as to whether their actions have.
The premier source on the county’s economy is MoCo Economy Watch, a blog by former planning department and county council analyst Jacob Sesker. Anyone who is not reading his site should start now. Jacob digs into everything and he has access to tons of proprietary real estate data that most of us lack. His warnings about our economy remind me of council analyst Susan Farag’s warnings about police staffing.
That said, my style is different from that of academic economists. I don’t write hundred page papers with multiple regressions and logit models because I don’t believe you would read them! My former bosses in the labor movement trained me to not do that. They wanted me to go through huge amounts of information and pull out a handful of points that really mattered. “Don’t give me a big pile of paper. Just tell me a few things I need to know.” That was good guidance for a young, fanatical researcher as I once was.
So let’s not make any discussion of our economy too complex. Let’s pull a handful of measures that matter a lot. Let’s look at long-term trends, use a variety of base years and see how we compare to the rest of the region.
Montgomery County is lucky in many ways. We have a diverse, educated, talented and entrepreneurial population. We have had a strong school system. Our county services, and the employees who provide them, are a cut above. We have excellent parks and beautiful neighborhoods. And for most of our history, we have had a prosperous economy to back it up.
But most of our neighbors have these advantages too. It’s in our interest that they have strong economies because our residents work and shop there. They are also competitors, all striving to attract residents and employers to build their tax bases, just like we should be doing. We are a big player in what has been a strong region and we would like to keep it that way.
So how are we doing? We will begin answering that question next.