These birds feather their own nests: Bringing jobs here can be done only by private sector

IN the springtime of every fourth year, the hillsides of WestVirginia come alive with the calls of that common bird, the panderuspoliticus.

"Jobs! Jobs!" cry these colorful cockatiels, hoping to enticeunwitting voters to come near.

Each bird adds its own trills and flourishes, creating a cacophonythat leaves even smart citizens dazed and susceptible to election-year gibberish.

But how does a state government, let alone one politician, createprivate-sector jobs?

The short answer is that it can't.

Worse still, when politicians try to create jobs, they end updestroying them.

Governments can add or remove obstacles to economic growth such astaxes or regulations, but a government that gets into the business ofeconomic development will reliably do more harm than good.

West Virginia provides a near-perfect example.

Rather than fixing our predatory legal system, lowering taxes andpaying off our debts, which require courage and vision, politiciansuse tax dollars to lure companies against their better judgment tomove here or expand.

Since that approach requires only herd-following and self-promotion, it's no wonder it remains popular here.

Think back five years to when your leaders were promising to hitchour wagon to the tail end of the high-tech star.

The logic went that while West Virginia might not be producing alarge number of programmers and systems architects, we could use ourpeople skills to do service work.

While Silicon Valley churned out the software of the future anddeveloped a wealthy population, West Virginia would bob up abovepoverty by handling the comparative scut work wealthier regionsdisdained.

Our folks could handle customer service calls, offer technicalsupport and do a little telemarketing and collections work. It wasn'tthe big time, but we were promised that the remaking of the Americaneconomy would not pass us over... again.

When Amazon.com opened a service center in Huntington in 2000,after being given a place to operate and myriad incentives including$3.3 million in low interest loans, it was heralded as proof that theplan was working.

The city of railroads and coal would become the city of Internetcommerce.

Part of the package was that your tax money would be used to builda cutting-edge technology park just off the interstate in Huntington.With Amazon as the anchor tenant, politicos would sell the idea toother companies and make Kinetic Park into a job-growing farm.

The only thing growing out at Kinetic Park four years later isgrass.

Amazon is still operating in Huntington and the jobs the companyprovides are a big help to the region, but all the talk of booms andsynergy has amounted to naught.

What happened?

It turned out that there were some people even more willing to dothese call center jobs than West Virginians. India, which has longbeen exporting technically savvy, English-speaking people to theUnited States, found that through outsourcing it could keep thepeople and send the services.

Outsourcing is helping India keep its people and helping Americancompanies make profits.

When the Internet bubble burst, profits started to matter again.That meant the job that Kenny in Wayne County wanted went to Ganeshin Calcutta.

Welcome to the world market, Kenny.

The Cato Institute's Alan Reynolds tells us that America has morecomputer-related jobs with a higher average wage than it did in 1999.The lower-skill positions that West Virginia wanted went across thePacific at a savings, which provided the money and resources forAmerican workers to do higher-paid jobs.

The rising tide raised all boats except for those in WestVirginia.

We were too busy trying to compete with Bangladesh to notice andended up out of position for the next round.

If a politician tells you he can create jobs, tell him we've hadabout all the help we can stand.

Stirewalt can be reached at 348-4824 or at cstire@dailymail.com.