State Officials Announce Horse-and-Buggy Task Force

Some of Jay Nixon’s economic proposals, like initiatives to retrain workers, sound like sensible policy to adopt during a recession. But I can’t imagine what good this will do (thanks for the link, and happy holidays, Combest; emphasis added):

Nixon’s six-point plan includes low-interest loans to small businesses, job training tax incentives and the establishment of an auto manufacturing task force.

Nixon defends the task force by predicting that people will continue to drive and new cars will be manufactured in the future. You can’t deny that. Does it follow that we need an auto task force, though? If the demand for cars goes down — because of changes in economic conditions, technology, or whatever — no task force can bring that up again. When auto companies are in trouble, there may be less reason to devote a task force to that industry. We don’t organize task forces around hansom cabs or steamboats. Innovations rarely arise out of state task forces, which are even slower to respond to changing conditions than inefficient auto companies.