Western New York cries out for leadership. Even before the pandemic, job growth in Western New York was slow. New York State Labor Department reported that the Buffalo area lost about 3,000 jobs between January 2019 and January 2020. More recently, they reported: “For the 12-month period ending June 2020, the private sector job count in the Western New York region fell by 80,900, or 14.7 percent, to 470,500.” But just across the border, The Globe and Mail reported (8/7/20), “The Canadian economy added 418,500 jobs in July as pandemic restrictions eased across the country, marking the third consecutive month of rising employment after millions of jobs were lost earlier this year.”
The reason Canada is doing so much better than Western New York is leadership. Western New York is rich in resources, talent, and technology that would favor economic growth, but it won’t happen without leadership. Republicans from Chris Collins to Chris Jacobs have not provided leadership. In fact, Mr. Jacobs campaigned on his devotion to President Trump, not on his leadership. Mr. Trump promotes conspiracies such as promoting a doctor who believes that dream sex with demons will make you sick and that a 75-year-old peaceful protestor in Buffalo, Martin Gugino, was Antifa. Chris Jacobs wouldn’t disavow this conspiracy, because he is a follower. Instead of leadership, we get bluster, belligerence and slogans, and we get conspiracies. We also get a sluggish economy and a pandemic that other countries have contained. Western New York needs a leader; we need a new Congressperson. We need a leader like Nate McMurray.
