How to Spend the Surplus?

by: Matt Singer

Thu Nov 30, 2006 at 17:38:45 PM MST

Most recently, the Chamber has a series of posts on chamber members' legislative views, including taxes, labor and employment issues, and the budget surplus. Now, it's quite possible to quibble with a number of items on the survey. Their budget surplus questions, for example, provide no insight to how various chamber members think the surplus should be split between cutting taxes and increasing spending -- a fairly critical question. Also, the tax questions lack enough specificity to get a real clear picture of what chamber members really believe.

Still, the overall image that emerges from the questions and their answers is that chamber members are, unsurprisingly, a relatively diverse lot in their views, although generally more conservative fiscally than the state as a whole.

Note, I'm describing them as fiscal conservatives and not as more fiscally responsible. I don't see much reason to think that they are more fiscally responsible.

Far larger numbers support spending money on education and "economic development." This last formulation is a tricky one, because the argument over what constitutes economic development is actually quite unsettled.

Adam Smith argued that the major role the government had in economic development was the creation of infrastructure and education. From this perspective, we could shovel surplus funds into community broadband projects, including both municipal and rural projects. That's an infrastructure development that could pay big dividends economically. We could also give more money to education. Or we could take a more activist view of the government and support using these funds to cut specific deals with specific companies to open up shop.

I have no idea what the 76.7% of chamber members who want to see money spent on economic development really mean. I suspect the chamber can't be positive either. Still, it's a worthwhile discussion to have and I was heartened to see the staunch support in the chamber for more money for education.

On the labor survey, I was pleasantly surprised to see a lack of question regarding union free-rider laws commonly known as "right-to-work" that allow employees to enjoy the benefits of union-negotiated contracts without paying union dues (unsurprisingly, such laws inevitably gut unions, meaning no workers actually receive benefits). Rather, they found most members dislike the state's lack of "at-will" employment, requiring that employers have a cause for terminating an employee, but they admit that there was discord among the ranks over the wording of the question.

The chamber should be applauded for operating democratically, although I have no idea whether this survey will massively impact their lobbying agenda, priorities, or strategy. I also can't know whether they'll weigh the size of the various businesses.

One of the projects I might be undertaking soon will be encouraging more institutional voices to enter blog-world, either as diarists, independent bloggers, or as institutional bloggers. The enterprise can be frightening, but it also provides a way to talk directly to members and get one's ideas into online "water cooler" discussion.

The chamber is already promising legislative coverage. I believe that NewWest will have a blogger/journalist at the statehouse. I may try to find a legislative correspondent or two. And who knows, some other folks may also provide coverage (perhaps Lee will bring back their statehouse blog).

The advantage to all these new voices? A level of access to information about statehouse decisions for Montana voters that would have been unthinkable ten years ago.