Explain this wingnuts; VT rated as one of the worst states to do business in: Unemployment 4%

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54. Maine's idiot governor

LePage was in my Maine town, Brunswick, last week and gave a speech at the old Naval Air Station, which has been converted, with mixed success, to a business park.

He was trying to promote "Open for Business" zones (why do these wingnut idiots reduce everything to slogans and think it makes a difference?) in the state of Maine. He wants these zones to basically be exempt from those "onerous" labor and environmental laws that supposedly keep big business from investing here. For example, he wants these zones to be "right to work" (an incredibly obnoxious phrase, just like "pro-life", that our ... liberal ... media has been so happy to adopt) zones. What I heard was - businesses will not locate here unless they will be able to exploit workers and bypass environmental regulations in every way possible.

Like Vermont, Maine has an aging, white, population. It is also, like Vermont, a wonderful place to live and work. Like Vermont, it is very cold - to me, the primary reason big businesses show little interest.

A better comparison than Vermont to Texas would be Vermont (or Maine) to New Hampshire, a state that can be argued to be more business friendly. I can't imagine any New England state willing to make the environmental and labor concessions that Texas has, and that is one of the reasons I live here.

The takeaway message of your poet, for me, is that quality of life cannot be sacrificed to attract big business. As I listened to LePage last week, all I could think was, do we really want businesses in the state that will only come here if they can subvert labor and environmental regulations? My answer is simple and unequivocal - no.

But, the question of what can be done to make states like Vermont and Maine more attractive to "good" businesses remains. My son and my daighter-in-law, a mechanical engineer and a lawyer, are both unable to find work here, and I wish there was some way to keep young people like these in the state. I think both Vermont and Maine rely far too much on tourism as the primary industry. I think New Hampshire and Massachusetts have more answers for us than a state like Texas.

On the other hand, after any visit to Boston, as I leave the New Hampshire Turnpike, for the Maine Turnpike, I am so happy to be back in Maine. Sometimes it seems like the very things that keep Maine or Vermont from attracting even small businesses are the things that give us our great standard of living. I think that making Maine more friendly to starting a business would be a huge start. Promoting home-grown business instead of trying to lure businesses away from the Southeast (a futile venture, in my eyes) seems a more reasonable way to go.