OUR VIEW: Tiger talk

Congressman Rick Boucher sounds convinced that Southwest Virginia could be roaring the same tune as the Celtic Tiger in the not-too-distant future.
Unfortunately, there’s a world between could be and will be.
Boucher and former Irish Prime Minister John Bruton toured the region last week, touting the growth Ireland made between 1994 and 2004. Truly, it’s a remarkable story. During Bruton’s time, Ireland went from the brink of disaster to one of the top economies in the world.
A couple things, big things, promise to prevent Southwest Virginia from aping Irish success. For starters, there’s the fact that Ireland cut corporate tax rates to the bone, creating an atmosphere where entrepreneurism could thrive. Try to mimic that in America, especially the one we’re going into, where corporate and private greed and stupidity have come to their logical ends. In today’s world, more taxes are going to be the call, if not the necessity.
If somehow, though, we could avoid raising taxes and maybe even slash a few, the right ones, here or there, there are practical reasons that will keep us on the outside looking in at that roaring Tiger.
Regionalism only plays in Southwest Virginia when Boucher is running for re-election or when former Irish prime minister pays a visit. The rest of the time, each county, town and city is fighting for the same training dollars, the same higher-paying jobs and the same future. Without cooperation and a solid plan, nothing will change.
Ireland’s boom didn’t just happen and it didn’t happen overnight.
Leaders there planned and worked, working the plan even in dire times. Sure, there was EU money thrown at education, but it was thrown in a thoughtful way. In Southwest Virginia, we have a tendency to read a study, get excited and throw pockets full of money with no way of ensuring a desirable outcome and no way to measure success. Success in work force training is not the number of hours trained. It is the number of jobs found. The number of area residents who don’t have to move away to find work. Success requires forethought, something many of the educational and governmental leaders our region appear not to believe in.
That plan of Ireland’s, too, looked for homegrown entrepreneurship. All too often Southwest Virginia counties find themselves chasing the big ones with tons of incentives. There’s nothing wrong with wanting the Gatorades, the AGC Glasses or the Volvos, unless we allow it to get in the way of fostering start ups and homegrown entrepreneurship. 
Unfortunately we will. We won’t intend to. But there’s a world between what we intend and what we, through our policies, patience and practice, get.