Business Blues

Worries about the current economic slump and rising health insurance costs are keeping Maine business people awake at night. And, they’re not convinced that policy-makers, especially state lawmakers – who only received an 11 percent vote of confidence – will allow the restorative powers of sleep to descend. That’s the disheartening news from a poll released earlier this month by Critical Insights, a Portland-based research firm, and Pierce Atwood Consulting, the consulting arm of Maine’s largest law firm.

The first attempt to measure businesses’ perception of the state and elected officials, the poll focused heavily on the state’s smallest companies. Nearly all of those polled had fewer than 98 employees.

These companies found much to complain about. When asked to name the single greatest liability to doing business in Maine, 34 percent of the 401 business owners and executives polled named high taxes. Health care costs were a distant second at 10 percent. This reaffirms that Gov. John Baldacci is on the right track making health care and tax reform the priorities of the early days of his administration. It also shows that these issues need to be addressed quickly to change the perception of the state’s business climate. The Legislature last month approved his Dirigo Health plan that aims to slow health care spending and the governor is currently working on a tax reform package that will not increase taxes.

Despite the governor’s quick action, he gets mixed results from business leaders, with 31 percent saying they have confidence in Gov. Baldacci’s ability to promote and foster business development. Twenty-eight percent said they had little or no confidencein the governor in this realm. He, at least, fared better than state legislators. Only 11 percent of those asked said they had confidence in these lawmakers to promote and foster business development in Maine.

That number is actually high, said Kevin Shorey of Calais, a small businessman and Republican legislator who serves on the Business, Research and Development Committee. The biggest problem, he says, is that people who have never owned a small business are establishing laws that regulate them. That’s because small business people are “home minding the store,” says Sen. Lynn Bromley, a South Portland Demo-crat who chairs the business committee.

The biggest message that is hammered home by this poll, both lawmakers agree, is that small businesses need to do a better job working with elected officials to ensure that their enterprises aren’t unduly impacted by new policies and programs. They must be realistic, however. Reducing taxes is a perpetual battle cry, but paying less usually means getting less.