Other Views On IBM

Some reactions to the news of IBM's layoffs:

* The Brattleboro Reformer blames Douglas (what, not Bush?) and points to the success of the nanotech project across the Hudson.  Fair enough; we've noticed, approvingly, what New York is doing.  But there is this line in the Reformer editorial that catches one's attention:

... New York made a conscious decision to invest in a hot new technology and put real money behind it.

Vermont spends more than 1/2 of state and local tax revenues on K-12 education and more, per-pupil, than all but three or four other states.  That's real money that the state doesn't have to invest in economic development schemes ... even if it had one.

* Green Mountain Daily also blames Douglas.  Which is not surprising.  But this is:

We've got artisan and specialty businesses galore, but how many people do they employ?  A couple at a whack.  Don't get me wrong, they're great, but we need employers who hire a lot of people.  We need employers who pay decent livable wages to Vermonters.  This is where Vermont is absolutely not competitive.  We've got a lot of educated, hardworking people who've had to settle for less.

The desirability of economic growth and prosperity for Vermonters shouldn't really be a partisan issue and one suspects that will become less and less the case.  One question for GMD, though.  If we are serious about finding those companies that will employ 1000 or more high wage workers --
Do we shut down Yankee?

* The Progressive Party also blames Douglas (ho hum) as well as

... the usual slew of ditto-heads ... trumpeting to the world that Vermont hates business and drives jobs away.

The Progs no doubt include this site and its readers and contributors among those "ditto heads," which is sort of charming since among our readers and contributors are people who have actually started and run successful businesses and who agree, heartily, with the proposition that Vermont is a tough place to do business. 

This is an old dodge.  Blame critics for being negative rather than arguing the merits of their case.  If our criticisms were as laughably false as the Progs and others like to say they are, then nobody would listen to them.  If this were, say, Texas – or New Hampshire – and we were arguing that taxes are too high, regulation too baroque, and the general attitude toward business too hostile, then we would be dismissed, rightly, as crackpots and nobody would pay us any attention.   

* The Freeps, as usual, dispenses pablum, including this astute gem:

The latest round of job cuts at IBM in Essex Junction should serve as a wake-up call ...

Vermont has gotten real, real good at sleeping through wake-up calls.

* Gaye Symington joins the chorus in blaming Douglas.  And claims that we need "new leadership." 

Er, wasn't she one of our leaders these last few years?  And wasn't she going around echoing the Prog complaint about critics at "some blogs" (wonder who she had in mind) who were always running down Vermont as a place to do business?

* Anthony Pollina blames ... oh never mind. 

Comments

[Jason M. Brisson]

Do you mean VT Yankee?

Why would we shut down cheap power? It's built, we've got it. Probably could use some repairs, but why shut it down?

Spending Growth Rates Fiscal Year 2002 - 2007:

Education: 56.6%
Human Services: 45.1%
Inflation: 17.3%
Employment & Training: -4.7%
Commerce/Comm Development: -13.1%

- A 2003 Census study showed VT has about 50% more state employees per capita
than the national average.

Enough said...

Source: Vermont Comprehensive Annual Financial Report. Fiscal year ending 6/30/06:

[Robert Mayanrd]

The real problem was IBM's decision to build Fab 2000 in Fishkill NY. Prior to that decision, the Vermont Plant was on the cutting edge of semiconductor manufacturing technology. This plant was home to the "Early Production Line" experimental project. Many of IBM's best minds in semiconductor Process Engineering were at this plant. From a purely internal, non-political perspective, it made sense to expand this plant and build Fab 2000 here. If that had happened, instead of going from a high of 8500 employees to our current 5400, we would have gone the other way.

In 1998 I was on a cost-cutting team tasked with the responsibility of finding ways to cut costs at IBM. It ran for eight weeks and we were visited by a NY corporate executive after it was finished. During the question-and-answer period, I raised the question of whether Fab 2000 would be built here. His answer was 'no,' that the taxes were too high. Later, I talked to other local managers who said that the whole package of taxes and regulation was the problem.

I am having a hard time seeing why GOP leaders are not trumpeting this at any chance they get.

[Mark Shepard]

I would be a bit cautious about using NY as an example. Attracting good jobs is great, but the question is how we do that via public policy. NY state has spent an enormous amount of taxpayer dollars (read as: reduced standard of living for those folks) to purchase the nano-tech jobs. Alternatively, they could have cut the state red tape and taxes and economic gravity would have done what instead taxpayers have to give up to accomplish. And in the end the taxpayer funding will slow and the bottom line to keeping good jobs will be ... just as in VT ... taxes and regulation.

Vermont should use it's small size to its advantage and take the bull by the horns and cut government. However this takes courage and honesty that is absent is most all elected state politicians. So don't waste your time looking for a solution out of Montpelier ... no matter who is elected. You and I are the solution. We cannot look to government for solutions and then complain about our high taxes and regulation. The two are connected at the hip.

Take education for example. The Democrat's and Progressive’s ideas resulted in Act 60 and the Republican's idea resulted in Act 68. They both are disasters, yet par for the course out of Montpellier.

What if instead Vermonters who feel the property tax burden is too high and/or who do not like the results coming out of our government-run school system sent their children to private schools and voted down school budgets? What if those without children helped create real and affordable education options in Vermont by supporting private education?

Could we create a system where most parents were in the driver’s seat in the education of their children? Clearly this will only when parents pay for their children’s education, but the upside is less and less left to the state and thus less justification for the high property taxes, which should lead to lower property taxes. How far could it go … as far as there are people who have more trust in themselves than those we elect.

Vermonters of all stripes have complained long enough about the education property tax. Shifting to another tax is not a viable option. The only viable option is to reduce the government’s responsibility and that will only happen when citizens put action behind their frustration and take that responsibility away from the state.

The alternative is more of the same or perhaps even worse: another Montpelier solution. A different result demands a different approach … what about a citizen approach?

[Chris Campion]

The flaccid and inane commentary that routinely issues forth from the Gannett Company, er, I mean The Burlington *Free* Press, makes me wonder if there's anyone alive behind the keyboard at their offices. If anyone needs a wake-up call, it's the editorial staff of that paper, about 20 years ago.

Vermont has been and continues to be bled dry of its best and brightest because there simply is no long term economic future in this state, unless something drastically changes in Montpelier. Seeing that nothing has changed in Montpelier over the past couple of decades, those with drive and a willingness to work seek their futures in other states.

When the state demographics have finally tipped to the point that the aging population is being regularly evicted from their lifetime homes because they can't afford the property taxes; when the taxes from successful, thriving businesses slows to a trickle because so few of them remain; when our youngest and best-educated people leave the state to seek something resembling a career that matches their capabilities - that's when we'll know there's no resurrecting what was once Vermont. We're already on that path. Now it's simply a question of how far we decide we're going to continue to go before Vermonters as a whole decide to stand athwart The Green Mountains and shout "Stop!".

[Green Mtn Punter]

Hey CC, nice re-do of Wm F Buckley's famous manifesto when founding National Review! Im sure BB would approve. I have had a fair amount of experience in NY upstate and find the business climate over there to be 180 degrees from VT's. They have to be since even high tax VT has some comparative advantages when stacked up against higher tax NY State and thus Chittenden County has been able to get as far as it has. And they have a comparative advantage against still higher tax Quebec as well.

Chittenden County's economy couldn't possibly exist if it were located along the NH border here in the Upper Valley, despite the fact we have not only a leading university but an Ivy League U. and associated medical center, and spin-off biotech companies, so comparative advantage there clearly goes to the Upper Valley vs Chittenden. But even that huge comparative advantage can't be turned into economic growth on the VT side due to NH's huge tax advantages and pro-business attitudes vs Vermont's.

NY State clearly has better, more pro-business political leadership than does VT. I think of Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno who has had a major role in Saratoga County's enviable status as the fastest growing, most prosperous county in NY State. Joe was instrumental in attracting Advanced Micro Devices and a planned 3,000 jobs to the new Luther Forest Technology Park in Malta, just south of Saratoga Springs, whereas his counter-part in VT, Sen Shumlin, succeeded only in insulting IBM's veteran rep in a public forum during this past legislative session.

We clearly have failed legislative leadership in Vermont and it's well nigh time that they, and their media allies such as the Brattleboro Reformer, be held accountable. Now the ball is in the Republican Party's court, the only viable alternative in VT: Do they have a well defined agenda, together with a grassroots organization and GOTV operation, that can convince the people of VT to turn the Democrats out of office? So far, the answer is "no", and time is getting short.

Is this going to be another missed opportunity, another election cycle of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory? The stars are absolutely lining up for Republicans, despite what the VT MSM-In-The-Tank- for- Obama and Democrats say in their whistling- past- the- graveyard performance.