If you’re a regular reader of this column, you may recall an article I wrote about a month or two ago about how lowering property taxes was not the solution to fix the problem of the stagnant growth in Nebraska. The so-called brain drain.

I wrote about a report funded by an organization called Strengthening Nebraska Families. This report was commissioned by Mike Cassling and Dana Bradford. It focused on how Nebraska needs to do more to bring primary jobs to the state.

A company that provides primary jobs is one like the Union Pacific, Nebraska Medicine, or Nelnet. These companies provide employment for people who will then support the secondary jobs such as restaurants, car repair, and beauticians.

For the state to grow, we have to entice more companies to bring their operations to the Good Life state, as well as make sure the ones that are already here stay.

The report pointed out that our neighboring states are spending at least 5% of their general funds to retain and grow primary jobs. Nebraska currently invests about ½ of 1%.

Last Saturday, I heard Mike Cassling speak about this at a meeting of the Free Speech Society. Cassling is going across the state to educate citizens about the importance of this issue. I moderated the question-and-answer portion of the event. One of the participants asked why the governor was so focused on lowering property taxes instead of bringing in these jobs.

I butted in and pointed out that, besides the fact that the governor owns a lot of land in the state, lowering property taxes is a good campaign issue.

Every voter can relate to taxes being too high, so when you say you’re going to work to lower them, the electorate relates to it on an emotional level. It’s hard, if not impossible, to get people emotionally worked up about the state’s deficit. It doesn’t matter that the Governor and Unicameral have little say in your property taxes, the majority of which are determined on a local and not a state level. Voters aren’t paying that close attention to the details. When a politician says they are going to lower property taxes, it makes the voters feel better about them when they go to the polls.

Henry Cordes of the Flatwater Free Press recently wrote an article about Nebraska’s slow growth. The article was picked up by the World Herald and other publications across the state. So, the conversation is slowly gaining momentum, but it still needs a hook to grab more people’s attention.

A hook to build a fire under the asses of the politicians and the voters alike.

At the risk of sounding a little hyperbolic, I suggest they step it up a notch. It’s not enough to say that states like Kansas, Missouri, South Dakota, and Iowa are beating us at this game. We need to put out an SOS that Nebraska is slowly dying. That if we don’t turn this around, and turn it around quickly, we will keep running up deficits and cutting vital programs. If we don’t fix this problem, the good life will be the mediocre life at best.

We need to appeal to the parents of high school and college-age children. Make them understand that if Nebraska doesn’t do more to bring in primary jobs, their kids are going to move elsewhere. And if their kids leave, they’ll take their future grandchildren with them.

This is not meant to be critical of all that Mike Cassling and Dana Bradford have done. Not in the least. They are doing a great job with the nuts and bolts of the issue and reaching out to the state senators and business community.

Lynn Walz has met with them and agrees that offering incentives to lure and keep more primary employers in Nebraska will help reverse the exodus and the deficits the state is facing.

But Governor Pillen is focused on his property taxes and not on this. Imagine if he and Governor Ricketts, before him, had paid a little more attention to Tyson Foods. Maybe the state wouldn’t have been blindsided when Tyson up and left Lexington in the dust. Take some time to visit their website https://strengtheningnebraskafamilies.com. It will go into greater detail about the problem and the solutions.

Then, after you visit the site, share it with other Nebraskans so they’ll know how important this is to our survival. We need to turn this around before it’s too late.

Tom Becka is a long time Nebraska broadcaster who for over 30 years has been covering Omaha and Midwest issues on both radio and TV. He has been a guest on numerous national cable and news shows, filled in for nationally syndicated talk radio programs and Talkers Magazine has recognized him as one of the Top 100 talk show hosts in the country 10 times. Never afraid to ruffle some feathers, his ‘Becka’s Beat’ commentaries can be found online on Youtube and other digital platforms.

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