While at the 23rd Legislative District Town Hall held in Poulsbo Feb. 18, I followed every word of legislators Rolfes, Appleton and Hansen, listening for discussion of private-sector jobs. Ample discussion was heard about gay “marriage” law, call for Washington income tax, need for more revenue and need for even more revenue. Private-sector job creation discussion was AWOL.
As part of Phase I of my Reform Kitsap initiative (see www.YouTube.com, search: Reform Kitsap-Reform Washington), I completed a recent small-business inventory around the highways and byways of Kitsap economic centers. My goal was to track the number of vacant commercial properties. Each of these vacant properties represents lost opportunities for a start-up business or service employing thousands of employees. Furthermore, each vacant property is a liability dampening recovery because each vacancy must be fed by the landlord for taxes, insurance, maintenance and leasing costs. Washington State clearly telegraphs that Washington is not a business-friendly state. Start-up businesses are convinced economic over-regulation, high B&O taxes, increasing sales taxes and fees, along with a bloated government workforce, are a toxic climate working against them. Special “green” funding of politically connected businesses or crony-capital friends in D.C. and Olympia corrupt real job creation. Case in point: The highly public $535 million Solyndra bankruptcy, President Obama’s “green miracle.”
Even closer to home we have prominent Bainbridge Democrat Franz securing $5 million in federal grants for RePower Bainbridge to create jobs and weatherize. Close tracking of RePower reveals extensive PR expenditures touting “success” and local private-sector weatherization companies undercut. We also have a local Bainbridge mystery company, Summit Energy/Summit Texas Clean Energy with CEO Eric Redman, securing $1.5 billion and producing right jobs.
The hard reality is government has an abysmal record in venture-start businesses. Government has neither the expertise or the sagacity to take borrowed federal/local money and give one company funding over another.
I decry government intervention in job creation. There is no reason to continue with our current D.C. and Olympia penchant for debt, doubt and decline.
James M. Olsen
Bainbridge Island
