Wisconsin’s business environment
August 30, 2007
Via WisOpinion: when reading opinion pieces on how awful (*) it is to do business in Wisconsin, I tend to discount arguments that start like this:
So, I bought this little Oil & Gas company in Texas this month, several million in revenue added to the bottom line and 11 new employees, nothing major.
I downplay them even further when they descend into complaints about how awful it was that the City of Milwaukee didn’t host a lunch at which the city expressed its eagerness to “assist with needs” like “how to deal with a number of layoffs”. (Apparently that’s standard operating procedure in Houston.) Instead, it appears that the city fills you in on some possible quirks in the local tax laws.
And this turns out to be the root of the problem. Companies in Wisconsin have to pay taxes (”all this taxing bull”). Not high taxes, or unfair taxes, but taxes at all: “I will be in another state with no state taxes or even the scent of a universal health care program.”
So while Christopher Carter, president and CEO of CCI, may think that “Wisconsin could learn from Texas”, I think that self-absorbed and mean-spirited (**) people like Christopher Carter should be allowed nowhere near the formation of public policy.
(*) It’s really not at all awful to do business here. In 2004, Madison was ranked #1 by Forbes magazine, thereby giving us the distinction, no doubt shared with many others, as the best place for business in the entire country.
(**) To take one example, see the author’s complaint that he had to stand in line with an uneducated person. The horror! He also vindictively promises, Ebenezer Scrooge-like, to keep “every last cent” of his new oil and gas company out of Wisconsin, as payback for having to stand in line too long.
August 30th, 2007 at 11:02 pm
[…] « Wisconsin’s business environment […]
August 31st, 2007 at 9:31 am
Texas? That state is trying to define what dysfunctional is.
Rampant corruption in government, gang rapes at youth detention centers, a business evnviroment that encourages illegal alien employment and of course, the oil industry running to Dubai.
Mr Carter should look at Mississippi, where they have the highest unemployment rate, the highest poverty level..and 100% neocon support.
Texas, however has local income taxes, massive property tax rates, and everyone gets a sales tax.
State: 6.25%
County: .5%
City: .5%
Transit: .25%
Special purpose: .125%
Sales tax….almost 8%
Wisconsin 5% with some localized .5% additions.
Mr Carter is paying 2% more to do business in Texas….unless he is selling his oil products elsewhere…like China.
August 31st, 2007 at 12:04 pm
I found his comments incoherent. They’re not even an anecdote, as good storytellers will insert pertinent detail to flesh out the story. Can anyone tell where he was and why he was there?
For starters, why is a Hales Corners software consulting firm buying a “gas and oil company”?
Once we have a few facts, perhaps we can have a real discussion about what was right and wrong about that government office or Wisconsin’s courtship of businesses either leaving or entering the state.
They’re talking about this over at Boots and Sabers, too. See link above. I’ve made a number of comments there.