In fact, I think he spewed the same rhetoric cited by Growth and Justice, at the Ridgewater College Forum in Hutchinson, minus the wagon comments.
Seifert said in 1972 the top three job providers in the state of Minnesota were 3M, Honeywell and Dayton-Hudson.
They were big companies that provide good benefits to their employees and families.
"Today three of the top five employers in the state are State of Minnesota, the University of Minnesota and federal government," Seifert said. "I don't know about you, but that is getting to be a little bit scary in terms of fewer and fewer job providers because o[f] more and more regulations and taxes."
Charlie Quimby makes a great argument against Seiferts comments.
It's plain misleading to imply with the example that big private employers have been displaced by big government. Or that government is the cause of the real pain being felt today by low- and middle-income families.
The Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development publishes comprehensive employment statistics going back to 1990. In that year, government employment was 16.2 percent of the total. In 2007, it was 15.5 percent. I examined the 17-year trends line for private jobs growth vs. growth for federal, state and local jobs in Minnesota.
Seifert ought to know that small businesses are the state's largest employers...most likely due to the fact that Minnesota has grown 32% since 1972, from about 3.8 million to around 5.1 million.
Anyway, I'm looking forward to Quimby's future posts on the "big government riding the wagon" fairy tale. I'm sure we have not heard this Seifert story for the last time...
No comments:
Post a Comment