Otter: “When we come out of this recession, Idaho is going to lead us.”
I know you all watched the primary election coverage on FOX 12, but after I got done telling you everything you needed to know about the election, you had to flip over to KTVB to watch the rest of the results. And if you did, you saw Governor Otter give a very strange speech.
In rallying the party faithful, Otter proclaimed “when we come out of this recession, Idaho is going to lead us” and “We’re gonna show the nation in the next four years how it’s done.” As a former political consultant I can only surmise that his communications staff did not tell him to say such things. Here’s why.
First of all, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, that is, the agency that keeps official tabs on the economy, the U.S. came out of the recession as early as July 2009. In fact, we have now had three consecutive quarters of positive GDP growth.
Secondly, Idaho did not lead the U.S. out of the recession. Fact is, Most of Idaho is still in a recession and the economic driver of the Idaho economy, the Boise-Nampa MSA which generates 50% of the state’s GDP is one of the worst performing metro areas in the country. This chart from Brookings Mountain West’s Mountain Monitor tells the story:
As you can almost clearly see, of the largest 100 metros in the U.S., Boise is 95th in the country in employment losing 10.7% of the job base since the peak of employment. Boise’s housing market is also nearly the worst in the country among the large metros - ranked 96th - among the 100 largest cities. Brookings has the whole report posted at their website.
The one thing that we know for sure is that bravado is not going to do a darn thing to help us get out of this funk, neither is ignoring it, or pretending it isn’t there. The fact is, the U.S. is out of the recession, and Idaho aint, and someone’s got to do something about it eventually.
Economic Development, Government, Myths of Idaho, Recession | admin May 28, 2010
