The Palm Bay New Deal: Palm Bay Works 2009

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It’s 1933 again in Palm Bay 

Palm Bay, following the leads of Franklin Roosevelt, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama, is planning to go to referendum to get Palm Bay working again! I understand paving roads and although I do not trust the numbers being given by the City of Palm Bay , I really do understand asphalt.

 That said, embedded in a referendum which should be about major road improvement we find:

• Provide $8M for a job creation grant program, $2M for infrastructure improvements related to job creation, and $3M for existing local business expansion and job retention grants.

The flyer states this program will ‘create’ 1,638 jobs. This is Keynsian nonsense. Government tax and spend does not create jobs, it simply shifts jobs to the Public Sector (what is seen) from the Private Sector (what is not seen). The argument may be made the contractors are not truly government employees, but there is no difference between government hiring the workers or hiring the contractors when the outputs success is measured in ‘job growth’.

The referendum is so full of holes to be laughable were it not serious. A good road repaving on a residential street may last 20 years tops, less on a connector road. Note right from the first the mismatch between the length of the benefit (maximum 20 years) and the length of the bond (30 years). Good luck in years 21-30 finding repaving money. Likewise the ill-conceived referendum promises ‘jobs’. Is there any analysis done by the City of Palm Bay showing 1.638 unemployed heavy equipment operators, surveyors, asphalt and pipe layers, and assorted needed laborers? If not, how can the local business and employee goals be met?

Then we have the scam portion of the referendum. One may measure and define roads, but try defining the above $13 MILLION for job creation and business expansion. Whose business? Which jobs? Given my experience with Redevelopment Districts, my bet would be a mix of politically well connected firms, ‘non-profits’ whose leaders rake in the chips, and a few entrepeneurial start-ups for show. The money will be spent with little accountability and will disappear faster than $700 billion blown into Wall Street.

If Palm Bay were ever serious about road referendums they’d break the city up into referendum districts based on the various Units as defined decades ago by GDC and vote by Unit. While many people in a Unit plagued by horrendous roads (think deep Southwest Palm Bay) may vote to get their area up to par, the incentive for those whose roads are already paved to pay for the lots way out there is about zilch. Thus the ‘job creation’ component is thrown in.

Palm Bay is fast becoming a Brevard County Municipal Vampire. I’ll get out the other bizarre methods of sucking the citizens dry through red light cameras, overzealous code enforcement and ruinous liens and even driving away the softball leagues (while the upper staff still are on the payroll), but here we have the Palm Bay Promise of Change, a New Deal for a New Day.

You cannot tax, borrow, and spend yourself to prosperity. It failed in 1923 Germany, 1933 America, 2008 Zimbabwe, and the 2009 Palm Bay experience will be no different.