Is The Stimulus Package Working?
by John Weckerle
It was with some interest that we read this Wednesday’s article on at Gadabout-Blogalot.com regarding an announcement by Governor Bill Richardson that Federal recovery funds had created 3,000 jobs in New Mexico, 2271 of which were “public sector jobs” and 738 were “private sector.” Ignoring the “missing man” there, the complaint is that these public sector jobs will be a tax burden upon the citizens of New Mexico.
We haven’t seen the press release, and haven’t followed through on each and every job category to see what individual jobs have been “created,” so we don’t know what the nature of the “public sector jobs” may be. However, we should not that “public sector jobs” is a fairly vague expression. If we’re talking about important jobs that we used to be able to afford and will be able to afford again when the economy picks up and tax revenues increase, that’s different from putting people in make-work positions who will be either a burden or jettisoned after whatever recovery is going to occur comes through.
As for the 738 private sector jobs: make that 739. Your editor has been making the grand majority of his living – probably more than 95% – since the beginning of this year doing stimulus-related work. There’s a good chance I’d be collecting unemployment if it weren’t for the stimulus package. I’m working with a team of dozens of others around the country doing the same thing for most of their time. Perhaps the best thing is that I’m working on environmental regulatory compliance associated with stimulus projects, which should help most of those projects move along – and once they do, look for announcements for thousands of jobs nationwide, just related the the small number of projects I’ve seen. Many of the projects involve financial assistance to energy projects that receive some funding for design and construction, but most of whose funding comes from private sector sources. Once up and running, these projects will be entirely funded by private sector funding – and should in most or all cases actually be profit-making operations.
None of the money I’m making on this work comes from the State of New Mexico, but certainly some of my tax money is going in that direction, and there is certainly benefit to the New Mexico economy from the money I’m spending here. The same can be said for all the other stimulus jobs – public sector or private – that are currently being funded.