Economic Prosperity
Oklahoma City is poorly positioned to meet the looming economic challenges of the 21st century. Our jobs and prosperity are therefore at risk. We use energy at a per capita rate that is higher than the national average – there are serious inefficiencies in our consumption of energy for transportation, commercial, industrial, and household uses. We consume 16.3% more BTUs per capita than the national average, and we pay 8.3% more per capita for our energy than the national average (source: Statistical Abstract of the United States). Our economic development activities generally focus on bribing corporations to locate here. But the problem with this is that these companies come here without any loyalties to this region, and if they get a better offer, they leave for someplace else. A better solution is to strengthen the local economy by stimulating local entrepreneurs, supporting locally owned businesses, and encouraging city residents to create jobs that will stay in Oklahoma City by starting worker owned business cooperatives.
•The first economic development job is to plug the leaks! The more times a dollar circulates in central Oklahoma, the more prosperity for everybody! We do this by supporting locally owned businesses, banking with a credit union or a locally owned bank (borrow money from financial institutions that do not sell their mortgages outside of the state), and buying food directly from Oklahoma farmers, ranchers, and food producers. Instead of using Community Block Development Grants to lure businesses today that may flee the state tomorrow, we can use them to stimulate local entrepreneurship, with a particular focus on worker and consumer owned cooperatives.
•Next we can make sure that we have an infrastructure system that can support economic prosperity as the price of fossil fuels like gasoline and diesel steadily escalates in the coming years. An effective, multi-modal public transportation system is pro-business and pro-prosperity and is an essential aspect of this Safe Community infrastructure that is tough enough to more than meet 21st century challenges. Public transportation systems make an area attractive to retired folks and to “cultural creatives”.
•I am much more interested in strengthening existing local businesses and stimulating job creation by local entrepreneurs than I am in bribing corporations to relocate here. In particular, we need to focus on assisting the birth of worker owned cooperatives. The City needs a “free help” center for people with ideas they would like to see realized via a cooperative business organization. One solution to the problem of the closing of the GM plant is for the workers of that plant to take it over and operate it as a worker-owned cooperative, making sensible and attractive vehicles that people actually want to buy. The State has already shown its willingness to help the plant stay open, and the present proposal could easily be converted to a worker purchase of the plant.
•Economic development can be greatly boosted when money or assets that politicians have been sitting on is invested in the local economy. The people of Oklahoma City have a very large pile of dollars locked up in the city’s Airport Trust. The airport is important and useful to the people of Oklahoma City and the surrounding area, yet there is no compelling reason for the city to own and operate an airport. This is an activity that is better handled by private enterprise. My suggestion is that we privatize the airport by creating it as a for-profit corporation and distribute 75% of the stock to city residents, with the city retaining 25% of the stock. City residents could then sell the stock or keep it, the City would have the same option. This would put money in the pockets of every household within the city limits and that is certainly one way to spell “economic stimulus”. It would also provide funds for reinvestment in other City infrastructure like public transportation, bicycle paths, and alternative energy programs.
