Say Anything Blog

Here's an interesting read from today's Wall Street Journal:

Update from the Whistler: Here's a link to the story that doesn't require a subscritpion.

BISMARCK, N.D. -- At a time when the much-celebrated coasts creak from rising interest rates, faltering income levels and soaring energy prices, this windswept, energy-rich city of 57,000 on the western edge of the Dakota plains is experiencing the best of times. Cities like this one out in the far-off hinterland -- Iowa City, Sioux Falls, Fargo, Grand Forks, Rapid City -- now are enjoying job growth rates that, if they don't rival Las Vegas, certainly put to shame those of most major metropolitan areas. Unemployment is negligible and wages are rising across virtually all job categories.

Over the past five years, the fastest growth in per capita income has taken place in energy-rich Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota, New Mexico and West Virginia, while highly urbanized places like California, New York, Michigan and Illinois gather dust at the bottom of the pack. Tax revenues in these once hard-pressed states are also soaring; North Dakota's surplus is now estimated at $527 million, representing more than a quarter of the state's $2 billion annual budget.

Behind the good times are numerous factors, such as an Internet-enabled shift of technology and business service firms into the region, and a growing migration of downshifting boomers and young families.

Boom times have indeed reached North Dakota. Of course, if you listen to Democrats here in the state you'd think we're all just struggling to get by. Howard Dean visited the state's Democrats recently (all except for the state's top three Democrats who avoided him like the plague) and then went on Meet The Press and told the nation that "those folks need help." "You should see what's going on in North Dakota," he said. "[P]eople [are] losing their health care."

Clearly, things are not as bleak as Howard Dean would have you believe. But then, with things in North Dakota going so well under Republicans the only way state Democrats can get themselves elected is by trying to get citizens to buy into the idea that things are worse than they really are. It's pretty typical of liberal politics. What North Dakota voters need to ask themselves is who they're going to believe: The folks trying to paint a bleak picture to get themselves elected or the folks currently in charge who seem to be doing a pretty good job?

Also, this from the article was knee-slappingly hilarious: (more...)