When I think of MoCo’s small, home-grown businesses, the first one that comes to my mind (and should come to yours) is Carmen’s Italian Ice. And when I think of Carmen’s, the first flavor that comes to my mind (and should come to yours) is Chocolate Rum Cake. Mercifully, Carmen’s has only two locations (Rockville and Olney). If they had any more, the chances of my sneaking in a frozen custard before, during, and after dinner would go up exponentially.
Think about your last month’s purchases from local retailers and service providers such as Carmen’s. They were probably from gardeners, handymen, plumbers, house cleaners, and mechanics; ethnic restaurants; barber shops and hair salons; beer, wine, and liquor shops; physicians, attorneys, and accountants. As you patronized those businesses, did you notice how many employees were working there?
Here are the two big insights into all those small, local businesses: they don’t hire very many people, and the people they do hire aren’t otolaryngologists making $400,000/year.
In fact, if you live in Montgomery County, you probably work for the school system (local) or the federal government or a federal contractor (DC/NoVA). As we’ve mentioned previously on this blog, and as stated in countless other studies, if you’re living in Montgomery County, you’re likely working somewhere else. The Census Department has an interesting page 2016-2020 5-Year ACS Commuting Flows. One of the tables there shows that MoCo has 544,747 commuters, and 133,649 of them are working in DC or Virginia. That is why there are traffic jams along the Beltway, I-270 corridor, and American Legion Bridge.
Let’s say Montgomery County goes full-out on supporting small businesses: tax abatements, relaxed permitting, relaxed inspections, waiving penalties, and canceling fees. How many additional Chinese restaurants and barber shops will open? More relevantly, how many people working in NoVA-DC will now find their high-paying jobs within the county’s borders?
Close to zero.
The only way to get commuters off the roads is to bring large-scale and high-paying employers into Montgomery County. “Large scale and high-paying” means big tech (Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and Facebook); defense contractors (Leidos, Raytheon, and Boeing); and consulting (Booz Allen and Deloitte). Winning just one of those employers is equivalent to doubling all the barber shops inside the Beltway with extremely high salaries.
But enticing a large employer to set up shop means giving concessions. Marc Elrich pitched MoCo as an abortion-friendly jurisdiction, which is a plus. However, large employers can get that and a whole lot more, including reductions on property taxes, reductions on income taxes, expedited permitting, and the same benefits that our pampered bio-tech sector receives. Not only that, because Montgomery County has been in such an economic decline for two decades, it will need to double whatever Fairfax County is giving to large employers.
Our electorate and our elected officials (Andrew Friedson excepted?) despise big employers. They prefer commuters be stuck in traffic jams and pollute the air than offer up treasure and tribute to Google in return for bringing in jobs. That’s why we’ll be suffering from the stagnation reflected on Deloitte’s job search page for quite some time.
