AUGUSTA, Maine (AP) — Maine Gov. Paul LePage says the state’s ranking among best states in which to do business has improved in a survey by Chief Executive magazine.
The magazine cited tax cuts as one of the reasons for Maine’s rise to 32 in the survey. Maine ranked 36th in the previous year. Maine received two stars in the area of taxation and regulation, four stars in workforce quality, and four stars in living environment.
LePage said more work needs to be done but that the survey shows that “we have started to put Maine back on the road to prosperity.”
Where are the jobs?
Where are the jobs? Where is the economic benfit. We got another call center? Maybe we got another tourism based business, where is the manufacturing? Where are the businesses that support the millions paid for training in the boat building indus through the Northstar Alliance Grant?
Spelling may not be the best but you are right on target. Call center’s can be set up anywhere, and just as fast shutdown. Maine’s seen that enough of that over the last 3 years. The manufacturing issue is far more important, and relevant, since that is what LePage made as a centerpiece of his election campaign. The boatbuilding training was a good start but is lacking since the market is still slow in coming back, more so since the boatbuilding industry is one of those that’s ‘hit’ by the luxury tax depending on what type of boat is built, i.e., commercial fishing vs a recreational type. What’s really disappointing, but in a way very understandable, was the Kestrel mess. In this one case, both LePage and ‘The System’ actually worked as they were supposed to by keeping Maine from getting it’s ‘whoozitz’ caught in the proverbial meatgrinder by giving away huge tax and training breaks to a company that was obviously hiding something. But what is sad is that this same type facility, that Kestrel left, with a locally trained workforce fully knowledgeable about the aviation industry, still sitting unused. Maybe it’s time that Maine tried again to see just what hi-tech aviation or other similar company’s are out there. If this survey is so good, maybe it’s time Maine did go looking.
I surmise that the lack of spelling has more to do with my inabilty to connect thought with fingers as I type. I noticed you had an error as well (chuckle). I do believe that this issue is not an issue that will be solved quickly. There are several “road blocks” to job creation in this State. Energy costs, regulatory requirements, taxes, climate, etc. I was reading an article regarding BIW. DEP fined them because they did not put the covers on cans of paint, they did not mark a container as hazardous. These were a few of the minor technical violations given. I cite BIW in this reponse because it illustrates a point that DEP makes it difficult. We place value on everything but our industry. So long as business pays taxes and mind their manners they are welcome to stay. There has to be alternatives. One incident is hardly an epdemic. However I know that such examples are common in Maine. Another conversation I recall was DEP suggesting that a stone arch culvert, in need of repair, would need to be replaced with a fish friendly design. The stone arch was 150 years old! I think the salmon adapted. That was on a toursit railroad barely getting by!
First step is to eliminate bureaucratic layers. I don’t want to go about damaging the enviornment; as an example. I want to find balance.
Kestrel was disappointing. So many excuses were offered as to why it wasn’t a good match.
Thanks
In re: your you won’t see jobs from your couch comment. I have my own business. I work pretty much 24/7. I don’t need a job. I usually stay off the couch because I spend my free time training for races. My question remains. Where are the jobs?
Agreed Sir. Maine’s DEP has been allowed to go unchecked for far too long. Are there times when a fine, and a healthy one at that, are called for ? No doubt there are. The BP mess is THE case in point if there ever was one. And if, and that’s still under debate, the Keystone is ever built you can bet that there are gonna be any number of well deserved fine’s slapped on should the builder’s decided to get ‘absentmindedly stupid’ when they are given the opportunity to correct themselves under a no-penalty process of education and correction. But I do agree wth you regarding the paint cans and container’s. There’s a time for fine’s and a time for corrective education, documented of course, but corrective education. The DOL has a program set-up for non-punitive safety inspection and correction. It’s even free and can be used as part of your company’s annual workman’s comp. rate reduction plan.
As far as the fish ladder and the arch, this is where Maine has it all over the rest of the country as far as the opportunity to integrate both smart engineering and construction techniques into a working solution that add’s to Maine’s history. Maine’s ability to deal with these issue’s are, in this area, only limited by the lack of creative imagination that the citizen’s, and the business community’s leadership, bring to bear on the problem or issue. And, in an off-center way, if these 2 group’s could ever quit seeing only to the end of their nose they would see that one of THE major solutions is right under their nose, that being the UM System and the local Community College’s. These institution’s are loaded wth kid’s who aren’t stifiled like us ‘old fogie’s’ are by years of institutionalized thinking. Set up a program whereby these kid’s are provided both a real-time working project opportunity that they are responsible for and, at the same time, make this project a academic for-credit class that has real impact on their grade’s. How many of these kid’s would almost die for the opportunity, in the various engineering program’s, to build a bridge or other structure for the community that they can point out is ‘their’s’ ? That’s the almost ‘800 lbs gorilla in the phone booth’ kind of imagination and ability that’s being restrained from working by the business community’s repeated failure to look beyond their own nose.
It’s also a sad indictment of the financial sector’s inability to get beyond their memory’s of the 1929 Crash when the entire country almost collapsed because the bank’s quit moving money around. Money, for better or worse, is like the blood of the country. It quits flowing around in circulation and the inevitable happens. Not to get political but if there was ever a time, and reason, for the Federal Reserve to be audited and to find out just who is strangling the country’s money flow, well, I would be hard pressed to point out that this the time. The country get’s the money flowing and we can all start breathing again. The Country starts breathing and business’s can start expanding and hiring again. It just takes imagination, and getting past the fear of fear, to begin. As it has been told to us all in the military “Get used to fact that you might not come back. Once you do that, and get past the fear of dying, you can start doing your job and not get screwed up in the process”.
China , India and Japan !
How does 32nd rank among the best? I was sitting here, open-mouthed, expecting that Forbes or somebody had ranked Maine 4th or 5th! Not so, dear boy. Spin, spin, spin!