Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval last week took credit for Nevada's economic recovery, suggesting his hands-off attitude and focus on economic diversification has boosted it faster than he anticipated, thus helping to justify his tax plan.
Republican Sen. Dean Heller, eager to blame President Obama for national and local economic problems, on Thursday suggested Nevada's economy is not recovering well, thus helping to justify his partisan pounding.
This amusing dissonance will continue, I'd guess, as Sandoval continues to talk about the recovering Nevada economy and Heller coninutes his tendentious bludgeoning of the president.
In his State of the State last week, the governor spent the early part of his speech bragging about how the state had rebounded:
"Even though some said it couldn’t be done, we managed to lay the foundation for a New Nevada," Sandoval said, before ticking off victories such as attracting drone development projects and Tesla's gigafactory and doubled his goal of creating 50,000 jobs,
"Nevada’s job growth is third strongest in the country, we have cut our unemployment rate in half, and we have the second fastest growing population in the nation," sandoval delcared. "We are adding good jobs in almost every sector, with business services, manufacturing, health services, gaming and tourism leading the way."
Pretty robust, no?
"We’ve actually done better than I thought we were going to do," the governor told me Friday.
And now along comes Cold Water Dean to essentially contraduict his friend, Brian.
"The economic recession affected everyone, but in my home state of Nevada it was especially harmful," Heller said during his first remarks as a member of the Finance Committee. (See video below). "Nevada experienced the nation's highest unemployment rate, nearly 14 percent at its peak. I would argue real unemployment today is north of 9 percent."
The latest BLS numbers show Nevada is at 6.9 percent, half what it was when Sandoval took over. That sound you hear is the governor gnashing his teeth.
"Though our situation has improved, Nevada's unemployment rate, unfortunately, remains one of the highest in the nation," Heller went on. "Recovery has been slow."
Slow? That's a direct contradiction of what Sandoval said.
Heller used similar language in his reflexive reaction to the State of the Union. You know, Obama destroyed the economy, and Nevadans are hurting, and so on.
So what to do when you have Gov. Sunny and Sen. Gloomy? How do you parse how much Sandoval should get credit, and how much the president should for what is manifestly a recovering economy in Nevada? Ecnomist will disagree, but....
Cue Sandoval: "I can’t deny it, that we are the beneficiary of an improving national economy, too," Sandoval said Friday. " But, I mean, when you put it into perspective that we were at 14 percent unemployment four years ago. The actual goal we were hoping that we’d be at 10 percent in four years, and we thought that that would be a monumental accomplishment, and for it to get down to 6.9 percent was tremendous."
Tremendous! It's so sad that Sen. Gloomy disgrees.
Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval last week took credit for Nevada's economic recovery, suggesting his hands-off attitude and focus on economic diversification has boosted it faster than he anticipated, thus helping to justify his tax plan.
Republican Sen. Dean Heller, eager to blame President Obama for national and local economic problems, on Thursday suggested Nevada's economy is not recovering well, thus helping to justify his partisan pounding.
This amusing dissonance will continue, I'd guess, as Sandoval continues to talk about the recovering Nevada economy and Heller coninutes his tendentious bludgeoning of the president.
In his State of the State last week, the governor spent the early part of his speech bragging about how the state had rebounded:
"Even though some said it couldn’t be done, we managed to lay the foundation for a New Nevada," Sandoval said, before ticking off victories such as attracting drone development projects and Tesla's gigafactory and doubled his goal of creating 50,000 jobs,
"Nevada’s job growth is third strongest in the country, we have cut our unemployment rate in half, and we have the second fastest growing population in the nation," sandoval delcared. "We are adding good jobs in almost every sector, with business services, manufacturing, health services, gaming and tourism leading the way."
Pretty robust, no?
"We’ve actually done better than I thought we were going to do," the governor told me Friday.
And now along comes Cold Water Dean to essentially contraduict his friend, Brian.
"The economic recession affected everyone, but in my home state of Nevada it was especially harmful," Heller said during his first remarks as a member of the Finance Committee. (See video below). "Nevada experienced the nation's highest unemployment rate, nearly 14 percent at its peak. I would argue real unemployment today is north of 9 percent."
The latest BLS numbers show Nevada is at 6.9 percent, half what it was when Sandoval took over. That sound you hear is the governor gnashing his teeth.
"Though our situation has improved, Nevada's unemployment rate, unfortunately, remains one of the highest in the nation," Heller went on. "Recovery has been slow."
Slow? That's a direct contradiction of what Sandoval said.
Heller used similar language in his reflexive reaction to the State of the Union. You know, Obama destroyed the economy, and Nevadans are hurting, and so on.
So what to do when you have Gov. Sunny and Sen. Gloomy? How do you parse how much Sandoval should get credit, and how much the president should for what is manifestly a recovering economy in Nevada? Ecnomist will disagree, but....
Cue Sandoval: "I can’t deny it, that we are the beneficiary of an improving national economy, too," Sandoval said Friday. " But, I mean, when you put it into perspective that we were at 14 percent unemployment four years ago. The actual goal we were hoping that we’d be at 10 percent in four years, and we thought that that would be a monumental accomplishment, and for it to get down to 6.9 percent was tremendous."
Tremendous! It's so sad that Sen. Gloomy disgrees.
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