More of the entrepreneurial spirit

By The Gazette Editorial Board

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Ask any Iowan where lawmakers' priorities should lie, and they're likely to answer: Jobs.

But in the competitive arena of economic development, it seems our state is treading water.

Iowa has some business success stories - expansions, new ventures, promising start-ups and new government approaches. But the balance sheet is sobering, with unemployment stuck around 6 percent (in some counties, even higher).

Two recent layoffs brought the issue into striking relief for hundreds more Eastern Iowa workers, their families and communities.

In Amana, 350 workers learned they will lose their jobs at the Whirlpool refrigerator plant. In Iowa City, Roberts Dairy milk processing plant announced it was ending production after 77 years, leaving 31 employees without a job, according to one union official.

“People were expecting to work here until they're retired, and now they're not going to have a job anymore,” Teamsters Local 238 President Gary Mika told a Gazette reporter about the Roberts' announcement.

It's a too-familiar story.

The state's top business leaders say we've got a long way to go in terms of attracting businesses, incubating new ventures and developing a 21st Century workforce.

The Iowa Business Council's first Competitiveness Index, released in early July, shows the state has failed to keep pace with other states in economic growth, education and work force readiness, governance and fiscal matters, and work force demographics and diversity.

The council, with representatives from the state's largest employers and three public universities, found that by most measures, Iowa's modest gains in critical areas were outstripped by more progress in other states.

Take student test scores, as an example. In Iowa, students have held steady or slightly improved math and science scores. In other states, reforms have yielded much more dramatic results.

The council had more bad news to share when comparing the cost of government, population growth, ability to recruit talented employees from other places or keep our best students at home.

The health and well-being of Iowa's workforce was the only measure by which Iowa was improving relative to other states.

The lesson is clear: Good enough just isn't good enough if we are going to grow Iowa's economy for the future.

The economic development tools at our disposal may working somewhat, but they aren't enough - it's time to invent some new tools, too. Develop lean, smart economic initiatives that work, give our children a world-class education - then keep them here - and support entrepreneurs whose new ideas could spur growth.

It will take an entrepreneurial spirit at the policy level, too, to jump-start Iowa's sluggish economy.

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