Ellen Simpson - January 12, 2009
Montana Wood Products Association
Economic Stimulus/Timber Production
Are you wondering as I am where our nation is headed? The economy is so volatile that even the alleged experts are changing their collective minds on a near daily basis. What appears to be the right answer one day is the wrong answer days later. Those of us in the timber community are struggling to stay afloat with the housing slump, poor market conditions, and lack of fiber supply. It is not a time for the faint of heart to be in any type of business and the timber industry is not an exception.
Montana’s economy, while better than many states, is on the edge because of the condition of the global economy. Our economic ride has been largely due to our natural resources and driven with high oil prices, high mineral prices, and high market prices for agricultural commodities. The income Montana has enjoyed for the past few years has been produced by businesses with the input of corporate taxes along with income taxes paid by individuals employed by those same businesses.
There have been stimulus packages coming out of Congress over the past few months none of which appear to have had much impact on the nation’s economy as a whole. The prospect now is in the works for yet another attempt to stimulate the economy through efforts to not just hand out money but to actually produce something of value along with related employment for citizens.
The infrastructure stimulus idea makes so much more sense than simply mailing checks to people to buy items made somewhere else. The first stimulus package passed by Congress made no sense whatsoever – the United States had to borrow the money from foreign countries to give to our citizens who then bought merchandise like large screen televisions made in those same foreign countries. Exactly what countries benefited from that action? Certainly it was not the United States.
If I understand the proposed stimulus idea correctly, there will be billions of dollars spent on actually producing something. I don’t know about the rest of the population, but I really like the idea of producing value-added products that have a positive effect on people’s lives. We in the timber industry have always been in the manufacturing business of producing a product and not simply moving money from one hand to the other the way a transfer oriented economy does.
While shopping – an activity I abhor – it is becoming ever more depressing when nothing I look at has a label or tag that has anything to do with the United States. While not outrageously expensive, most of the merchandise is poorly made – seams sown too closely to the edge, buttons barely hanging on – and bearing a label from countries I did not know exist. I long for the days of looking at the red, white, and blue labels proudly stating “Made in the USA”.
So, if there is a silver lining to the proposed upcoming economic stimulus package being developed by Congress, it could be the realization that we as a country need to produce more of what we use. We need to use the timber that is abundant in Montana, close to our mills and other manufacturing facilities to supply our workers with the fiber they need to produce commodities used by our citizens.
The extraordinary benefits of local employment and value-added product production are priceless. Well-paying jobs with benefits not only help the workers but extend to the entire community in which the jobs are located. The indirect impact of timber industry jobs is a multiplier of at least two plus times. The positive effects on Montana communities are enormous in every aspect from public education to social services to medical care. In other words, healthy communities will greatly aid in heading our nation in the right direction.
On behalf of the Montana Wood Products Association based in Helena, I am Ellen Simpson. Thank you for listening.
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