Marketplace of Ideas Blog

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel columnist John Torinus on an economic development study expected to be completed in the spring, just in time for the 2010 election campaign:

The expectation is that jobs and the economy will be the central issue in the campaign. What else could it be when the jobless rate approaches 10%, when many families are just hanging on, when state and local revenues are in the tank, and public budgets are in virtual if not technical deficit. ...

There will be the temptation amid this deep economic crisis to rush to solutions. We all have ideas. My favorite is to promote a robust entrepreneurial ecosystem for the state. New companies create the most jobs. And Wisconsin invests in the brainpower to be a serious player in the Innovation Economy.

But many other good ideas are out there. The consulting firm will tap into all the economic data about the state and into a reservoir of previously recommended strategic solutions. Unions will push workforce training. Economic developers in the regions of the state will forward their strategies based on what are known variously as clusters or driver export industries.

Universities favor research and development as an engine for economic revitalization. Some will push tourism.

All those approaches have pros and cons. The trick will be to weave them into a coherent economic strategy for the state. We have never pulled that off, even after the four economic summits early in this decade. ...

The summits positioned a previously disengaged university system as pivotal in the state's economy.

Yet those accomplishments have not proved sufficient to propel a state of more than 5 million people. We need a broader, smarter, savvier strategy that people of the state will buy.