As an economic strategy, austerity blows. But as a political strategy, it also blows

Filed in National by on August 15, 2011

Sometimes big national spending (similar to this little Delaware spending) is clearly what the times call for. No matter… our county is being held hostage by nihilistic teabag economists, and dim wits who think that we need to starve ourselves back to health.

Here is a block quote from the NJ article by WADE MALCOLM and DOUG DENISON:

Markell’s surplus spending earmarked for construction projects has been a welcome bit of relief for contractors, especially local firms.

“It could be a lot worse out here,” Simpers said. “Markell’s done a good job keeping a lid on it.”

The surplus funds, appropriated through the Bond Bill, require that all firms working on the project report the number of Delawareans they employ. The residency of their workers and each firms’ previous work with the state will be weighed, although not as heavily as other factors, in deciding which companies win bids for the projects.

“That’s a reporting issue that’s mandatory,” said Jerry McNesby, vice president of finance at Delaware Tech. “The General Assembly wants to know who’s working on what jobs and what their licenses plates look like.”

Keeping the spotlight on local firms is key, Moore said, because contractors in the region are now more likely to cross state lines for work.

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Jason330 is a deep cover double agent working for the GOP. Don't tell anybody.

Comments (8)

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  1. kavips says:

    One should occasionally tip the hat to Markell, especially since what he does is a thankless position.

    Some people always want more money thrown in “their direction”. Some people always think too much of “their” money is being thrown at the wrong people…

    The secret to understanding which side is right, … is to filter out what everyone and their stepchildren are saying, and look at hard data.

    What Jack inherited was a Delaware economy despite our state’s area being ranked 49th by size, our economy was ranked 40th, nestled between the economies of Hawaii (39th) and West Virginia (41st).. 38% of our economy flows from banking and insurance entities, coughing up roughly $20 billion. or 1/3 at 32.3%. Coming in 2nd, is Real Estate, at 7.5 billion or 12.1% of the economy in 2008. And third, Government accounted for 8.7% of the economic output with a contribution of $5.4 billion. Manufacturing (4.6%) and professional/technicals (4.0%) rounded out the top 5.

    We know what happened to each of those sectors in 2009. But what Markell has done is keep a ship afloat during a torrential storm.

    Given the facts, that makes this new graph from the Federal Reserve, even more impressive. Facts speak louder than words.

    http://alfred.stlouisfed.org/graph/alfredgraph.png?chart_type=bar&s_1=1&s%5B1%5D%5Bid%5D=DERGSP&s%5B1%5D%5Bvintage_date%5D=2010-11-18&s%5B1%5D%5Bcosd%5D=2007-01-01&s%5B1%5D%5Bcoed%5D=2009-01-01&s%5B1%5D%5Brange%5D=Custom&s%5B1%5D%5Bline_color%5D=%230000FF&s_2=1&s%5B2%5D%5Bid%5D=DERGSP&s%5B2%5D%5Bvintage_date%5D=2011-06-07&s%5B2%5D%5Bcosd%5D=2007-01-01&s%5B2%5D%5Bcoed%5D=&s%5B2%5D%5Brange%5D=Custom&s%5B2%5D%5Bline_color%5D=%23FF0000

    Markell achieved almost a 3% GDP jump since 2008, compared to the much soon to be touted Texas Miracle (Perry) that jumped his economy a remarkable 2.8% over the same time frame.

    success lies in facts; not opinions.

  2. Jason330 says:

    I doubt that we would have had the 3% GDP jump that Kavips mentioned if he had invested that money in tax cuts (as the dumb-asses at the CRI wanted) or simply sat on it as favored by cypto-teabag Dave Burris.

  3. Say What says:

    Take out the federal injection of funds and the 3% GDP figure is ZERO. Markell did nothing to grow the economy, get real.

    The federal reserve has as much clue about the economy as liberals do about anything other than redistribution of wealth.

    Keep talking and maybe the 20% of the world who are uniformed liberals will believe you.

  4. kavips says:

    That last comment sounds like good advice for conservatives. Nothing they have tried has worked. So they try the exactly the same things again, expecting different results..

    No informed person can believe a conservative. Fact.

  5. Jason330 says:

    DAVID PLOUFFE YOU STUPID MOTHERFUCKER!!! I hate your stinking guts you dumbass piece of shit!!

    Sorry. I’m still working on my morning affirmation.

    Stocks on Wall Street dropped sharply on Thursday, with investors spooked, again, about the euro-zone debt crisis and the sputtering United States economy.

    Yet, even at this hour, leaders on both sides of the Atlantic seem determined to handcuff fiscal policies — the main tools that can increase jobs, consumer demand and economic growth — with an unquestioning devotion to rigid austerity

    From this morning’s dkos.

    The good news is that Obama says that we can put a jobs program in place as long as tie to to “restructuring” social security.

  6. puck says:

    Thanks to the crazy low taxes on dividends and capital gains, investor response to drops in stock price is to immediately boost it back up again by dumping thousands of employees as ballast. Here it comes.

  7. puck says:

    I hate being right:

    BofA reportedly slashing thousands of jobs

    The retrenchments are part of CEO Brian Moynihan’s efforts to engineer a recovery at BoA, which was hit hard by the bursting of the housing bubble. Its share price has fallen nearly 50 percent so far this year[…]

    Many other banks and financial institutions are also cutting staff. They are under pressure to improve returns to investors amid a weak U.S. economy and new restrictions on lucrative trading and banking activities that were blamed for contributing to the 2008 financial crisis.

    Surely, laying off thousands of people will create a flood of new homebuyers and restore the mortgage market.

    This of course parallels Republican and Democratic plans to “engineer a recovery” in the US economy by dropping people from payrolls and benefits.