Both women suffered in what many economists call a “lost decade” leading up to the 2010 elections.
Patricia Hamlett of southeast Denver was laid off after her job was outsourced and emerged this year as a committed Democrat.
Andee Neely-McCauley of Carbondale lost her job as the housing bubble burst and surfaced as a determined Republican.
And voters like them are foremost in the minds of U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet and Republican challenger Ken Buck as they assign blame for economic failure.
Bennet says the lost decade featured a false economy based on runaway borrowing, that collapsed and robbed the U.S. of a plan to grow. Buck says the government grew fat and punitive, crushing the life out of business and addicting Americans to public spending. Bennet says he, President Barack Obama and government can still be the solution; Buck says he will stop government from being the problem.
“Obama came into office to clean up somebody else’s mess,” said Hamlett, who will vote for Bennet. “I don’t blame the bad economy” on Democrats, she said.
“I worked for 30 years up here, and was laid off, and I haven’t found a thing,” in her job search, said Neely-McCauley, who will vote for Buck. Republicans are “concentrating on lowering the tax structure and encouraging more small business,” she said.
Bennet, and many independent economists, argue that in measurable ways — such as family income, jobs, housing prices and stock market savings — the years from 2000 to 2010 were a washout.
In the meantime, Bennet’s stock town-hall speech goes, the big-ticket items of middle-class aspirations shot upward. Tuition at CU’s main campus rose 179 percent in the decade; average health care premiums went from $6,438 to $13,770.
“And during that time we shipped millions of jobs overseas,” Bennet says, amplifying a prime Democratic unemployment theme.
Up to there, Ken Buck might largely agree.
Buck frequently blames both Republican and Democratic administrations and congressional leaders for the deep recession. Buck talks of being realistic with his own children, and all Coloradans, that the growing entitlement society has to shrink before the little life left in the economy gets squeezed out.
There, the philosophies diverge. Bennet’s most frequent campaign line speaks of “not leaving less to our children and grandchildren than we had for ourselves.” He conjures an economic revival shaped by government policy, prodding and incentives, focused on energy independence and clean technology jobs.
Buck’s ideal future is government stepping out of the way to let private business do what it does best, free from bureaucrats “picking winners and losers” among energy supplies, health plans or school systems.
“It’s small business that creates jobs, not government,” is Buck’s conclusion.
Economists say the challenge is not just parceling blame to the proper political party, but ensuring that the next 10 years don’t amount to another “lost decade.”
Half empty or half full?
Colorado Springs economist Tom Binnings paints a picture of the past 10 years this way: Baby-boomer dollars that were flowing to big homes and RVs are now going for prescription pills and heart surgery. “We’re spending that money on rising health care premiums and health care costs,” said Binnings, of Summit Economics.
It’s not all depressing, argues University of California at San Diego economics professor James Hamilton. The decade saw huge advances in technology, both personal and industrial, real growth in gross domestic product, and major improvements in medicine.
“I don’t think you want to say that nobody did well,” said Hamilton. “But I think it’s accurate to say that some people were left behind.”
These economists see a permanent change in Colorado’s prospects during the last 10 years. The state lost the high-profile headquarters of companies such as Frontier and Qwest, but also lost medium-sized manufacturing facilities with well-paying jobs in technology, such as Intel computer chips in Colorado Springs. The housing boom that fueled construction employment, property-tax revenue and consumer spending fed by home-equity loans may also be gone for good, they said.
What government could do to speed that transition, if voters push in that direction, is focus on Colorado’s green energy economy, marketing the state’s quality of life to companies, and taking advantage of health-care reform to build jobs, economists said.
Bennet takes a similar view, saying government should direct the transition to clean energy and independence from oil with a renewable energy standard and emissions regulation. He also calls for government help in directing education, so the U.S. produces enough engineers, scientists and skilled workers to compete with China and India.
Both Bennet and Buck call for reducing and restructuring taxes on U.S. corporations so they can better compete internationally.
From there, though, they diverge. Government is more often the problem than the solution, Buck argues. Federal agencies should not “pick winners and losers” in the energy field; U.S. energy independence would come faster if regulations on drillers were loosened. Buck says the science on global warming isn’t proven, and Congress should not stifle business growth with onerous climate-change rules and taxes.
With most jobs created by small business, Buck says, renewal of the U.S. economy will come when government leaves the field by cutting back and freeing commerce.
Either philosophy will be severely challenged if the worst fears of economists prove true. They say the real danger is a “lost decade” in the next 10 years. Private employers and government are both pulling back at the same time, real estate is in a slump, and U.S. manufacturers are losing out to world competition. To economists, that sounds dangerously like Japan in 1990, which then saw a prolonged stagnation that continues today.
“The recovery’s going to take a while, and it’s not something that’s going to be fixed overnight,” said University of Denver business professor Maclyn Clouse.
Coping until things improve
Voters like Hamlett and Neely-McCauley are trying hard to stay optimistic.
Hamlett lost her $42,000-a-year job at health-insurance giant Anthem when the company moved data and customer-relations jobs to the Philippines. She’s getting her father’s help while pursuing a nursing degree, a field she thinks has a secure future. She can’t afford car insurance, so her coping strategy is to drive more carefully to class.
“I thought they were supposed to be saving our jobs, instead of continuing to send them overseas,” Hamlett said of the government.
Neely-McCauley worked in both real estate and in an Aspen permitting agency; both jobs were crushed by the collapse of the housing boom. She’s frustrated that many jobs she looks at now seek bilingual applicants, and believes illegal immigration is a key area Republicans should fix.
She’s spending more time with her grandchildren while still looking for work and tries to stay optimistic about the future.
“I’m a really upbeat person, but I’ve never felt this way before,” she said. “I want to be able to see my children and grandchildren succeed.”
Michael Booth: 303-954-1686 or mbooth@denverpost.com
