That’s because of two reasons — jobs are being created and immigrants are coming to our country. There used to be a third reason — new babies — but the birthrate in the U.S. has steadily fallen.

So to stop growth, the no-growthers need to stymie job creation and halt immigration. But they do not have the guts to do either. Instead, they attack builders (as if builders create growth). They create no-growth groups with lofty sounding names like “Futurewise” to fight all housing developments. And the really radical no-growthers even burn down new homes to protest growth.

But growth keeps occurring because the no-growth enviros are too cowardly to focus on the two main causes of growth, jobs and immigration.

For instance, the number one employer in Washington State is not Boeing or Wal-Mart. It’s government. Over 20 percent of workers in our state are employed by government. And government employment is growing at an alarming rate —take a look at the 16,000 new state workers Governor Locke hired in eight years or the 3,000 new state workers Governor Gregoire has already hired. All these new workers need a place to live.

During the past 16 years, I have attended or watched literally hundreds of meetings in Olympia where government growth was discussed. Never once did any environmentalist ever oppose more government jobs. In fact, the no-growthers routinely encourage government officials to hire more workers. They want more jobs, not less jobs. They want more growth, not less growth.

On the immigration issue, the response from no-growthers is much the same. Over twelve million immigrants came into the U.S. legally and illegally in the past ten years. All these newly arrived immigrants need a place to live.

Yet, not one enviro group has ever supported closing down U.S. borders and stopping immigration.

Again, no-growthers are hypocritical and they’re cowardly. If they really want to stop growth, then they must first stop immigration.

Next time you encounter no-growth activists who are trying to shut down your building project, ask them why they are too timid to confront the real culprits of growth — new jobs and new immigrants.

What Happened in Past 40 Years?

Forty three years ago, President John F. Kennedy visited Washington State. He traveled around the state touring sites like Mt. Rainier and the Puget Sound. He concluded his trip with a speech to 25,000 people jammed into Cheney Stadium in Tacoma.

During that speech on Sept. 25, 1963, President Kennedy said he was impressed by nature (he specifically mentioned Mt. Rainier) “but I was more impressed by man.”

“Everything I have seen was given to us by nature but man did something about it,” Kennedy stated.

Today, any politician — Republican or Democrat — would be maligned and vilified for saying man was more important than nature. Hundreds of laws and regulations have been imposed that presume nature is more important and more impressive than man. American citizens today are being thrown in jail — with longer sentences than drug dealers — for filling a wetlands. Entire companies are being shut down because of the costs of complying with environmental restrictions.

What happened in the past 40 years? Environmentalists, using fear not facts, have conned us into believing man is beneath nature. Enviro zealots attack any public official who rejects this mystical notion.

JFK spoke the truth in Tacoma 43 years ago: man is more impressive than nature. But today, he would be voted out of office for such heresy.