Improving business on all levels of government

I had the opportunity to sit down with Jeff Gray, the city planner for Mount Pleasant, on Friday.

It was nice not only because we had the opportunity to get some confusion out of the way regarding our take on the U.S. Census issue, but because I also had the chance to give some input in regards to making the city a more attractive place to reside.

The key point I made not only applies to localities such as cities or townships, but on state and national levels as well.

If you want someone to move somewhere, one of the most attractive things a location can have is job availability — a result of increased business.

Jason, that’s common sense Gray said. If that’s the case, there seem to be a lot of legislators and executives at the three levels lacking it.

For example, let’s examine the labor issue. Australia apparently has the ability to require a business to rehire a fired employee, even if the firing was legitimate.

Imagine the dramatic decrease on hiring that would ensue if we had that.

Fortunately, we don’t but, with the current system in place where employers are required to deal with unions whether they want to or not (voluntary association be damned), it’s incredibly hard and expensive to fire unionized employees.

Plants have even closed because a business doesn’t have the option to just say no to dealing with a union and pay employees what they are willing and able to based on a market system.

Not that it matters — union stooges such as Virg Bernero and Ron Gettelfinger would probably claim it as a victory for sticking it to big business or something equally absurd.

That’s just one area where government drops the ball and makes a locale not conducive for business.

There are a slew of other environments — taxation, regulation, etc. — that government seems to make toxic for business, seemingly due to negligence.

Making significant, refundable, tax credits — which aren’t very transparent to the public — available to the film industry might draw that particular industry to the state, but what about other industries?

Would you want to run a business in a state that requires you to succumb to a harsh tax system and, on top of that, subsidize these payments to the film industry? I wouldn’t.

If the country, state and localities want to increase their attractiveness to potential residents, they need to make an environment palatable to business.

If they want to do that, they need a dose of this “common sense,” which doesn’t seem to be very common at all.