Democrat Senate Candidate Doesn’t Like Governor John Hoeven’s Jobs Numbers

And I don’t really like them either. In fact, given this post I wrote back in 2007, it almost seems like Potter has been trolling this blog for criticism of Hoeven.

Bismarck Sen. Tracy Potter and Gov. John Hoeven are arguing over numbers from Hoeven’s campaign team giving the governor credit for creating 40,000 jobs while in office.
Potter said a decrease in population and increase in the state unemployment rate means that’s not possible.
“If anyone in the Hoeven campaign can explain how those two facts add up to North Dakota having more jobs, I’d like to hear it,” Potter said in a statement.

Potter’s criticism has a big problem, though. My post in 2007, in which I made the same argument that Potter is making now, based North Dakota’s population growth on an actual census count from 2000 and a census projection from 2006. That showed a decline in the state’s population, but the problem is that more recent estimates have shown growth in North Dakota’s population. Which…kind of throws a monkey wrench into Potter’s argument.
That and the fact that unemployment rates issued by the government are a notoriously poor estimate for the actual number of unemployed.
Now, I’m loathe to give a liberal like Potter tips, but he’d be better off pointing out that while North Dakota has certainly been adding jobs (this is a fact I don’t think anyone can dispute), those jobs have little to do with Governor Hoeven’s policies. The centerpiece of Hoeven’s jobs policy, the so-called “Centers of Excellence”, have been an utter failure creating few jobs at a huge expense to the taxpayers (roughly $42,000/job). And Hoeven’s approach to economic policy in general, which focuses on Obama-like government spending in the hopes of spurring economic development, has a mixed record at best.
Anyone familiar with the companies that come to communities in North Dakota to collect on economic development packages only to flee as soon as those benefits dry up knows what I’m talking about.
If North Dakota has created 40,000 jobs, and maybe we have, it hasn’t been due to Governor Hoeven’s policies. It’s been because of our natural resources. Coal, oil and agriculture.
If Potter had just said that Hoeven is taking credit for jobs he didn’t actually create, he’d have been right. Of course, that would mean that Potter would have to admit that coal and oil are vital parts of our state’s economy, and I doubt the died-in-the-wool liberal would want to do that.