Prompt Attention Will Reap Dividends

The Puget Sound economy is booming. So why would Washington state’s business leaders, including heads of top West Side corporations, be urging voters and candidates to think about how to improve the business climate - which the executives consider to be a problem?

Because the Puget Sound area is choking, suffering from the second-worse traffic congestion in the nation.

Because away from Puget Sound, where personal income has soared in recent years, there is another Washington, where average personal income is below the national average and getting worse.

Because the state can more easily afford to improve its business climate in a time of prosperity. In downturns, the state cuts spending and raises taxes. Now is the time when we can afford to ease business taxes and invest in roads and schools.

Last week, three top advocacy and research groups announced formation of the Washington Alliance For A Competitive Economy. The alliance’s goal is to make an issue of the business climate and push for its improvement. Founding members of the alliance are the Association of Washington Business, the Washington Roundtable and the Washington Research Council. Phyllis Campbell, president of U.S. Bank of Washington and the Roundtable’s chairwoman, announced the group’s formation and its goals.

Goal No. 1: Strategic investments in transportation and education. Freeways are clogged. Funding for roads and transit is insufficient for long-term relief. The push for a third runway at Sea-Tac Airport is bogged down in a regulatory swamp. Clearly, our state needs a long-range transportation plan and resources to pay for it. Educational needs are considerable, as well. Washington’s high-tech industry has 64,000 unfilled software jobs because employers can’t find qualified workers. Education reform ought to spread, from the K-12 system and up into the higher education system, which is not producing all that the state’s employers need.

Taxes and regulations rank high among the new alliance’s concerns. Washington’s business taxes are among the nation’s heaviest. Meddlesome agencies such as the state Department of Labor and Industries continually churn out regulations that make it more expensive to do business here.

Finally, while it is only beginning to get attention even among business leaders, we add that our region’s power supply is about to become a serious business climate issue. Washington’s old industries were founded on low-cost hydroelectric power. But the new, high-flying technology sector also uses lots of electricity - and requires this power to be reliable. Yet surges and brownouts are becoming more likely and will hurt our region’s future unless the Bonneville Power Administration gives preference to Northwest industry in the allocation of its megawatts.

Business climate, said Campbell as she announced the new organization, deserves more attention than it’s getting in this year’s campaigns. She’s right. When prosperity is a just a lucky accident, luck can change and prosperity can disappear. For prosperity to be sustained, Washington must use good times to lay foundations for better times, revising policies and improving services so business, prosperity’s source, finds a hospitable environment statewide.