"Austerity as proposed by the Tea Party would not do anything to help economic conditions in the Southwest," says Peter Fant, president and CEO of Santa Fe, N.M.-based Souder Miller & Associates. "The political will to stomach investment in infrastructure and renewable energy would provide the most benefit for our firm."

But with more public funds often comes more bureaucracy, at the expense of providing needed improvements to the Southwest's rural communities, warns Mark Woodson, president of Flagstaff, Ariz.-based Woodson Engineering & Surveying. "It is critical that the system for obtaining funds through federal government programs be streamlined so that a greater percentage of these monies actually reach the intended recipients, rather than being absorbed on the way down into purely administrative functions," he says.