Doesn't matter. Jack Roberts and the whole GOP menagerie will be repeating that broken record about how Oregon is anti-business.

I guess there is more than one way to the top of the list...

Utah lowered its corporate tax rate from 7% to 5% in 2008, to the delight of businesses. The rate is now one of the lowest in the country. The regulatory climate is also pro-business, with the Pacific Research Institute rating Utah second-best in the regulatory component of its U.S. Economic Freedom Index. "We want to make sure we don't have any nonsensical regulations that inhibit the private sector from expanding and having a profitable bottom line," says Hebert.

The way I interpret that poll all Oregon really needs to do to get to #1 is to clean house and clean up it's meddlesome and intrusive regulatory environment. You know the one Kitzhaber and his radical envirowhackjob friends have buried the state in. The other category Oregon did well in was supply of labor force ...no kidding thats because 1/2 the state is unemployed or underemployed time or cange we can believe in

Oregon rated business friendly and moving up according to Forbes -- it must be a liberal conspiracy! Quick, let's screw up the economy again so we can blame democrats and get re-elected.

You have to want to live in Oregon. I am a transplant from California. I can't convince even my most progressive friends to move here because of the weather. I think even if the job market was red hot up here, we would always lag a little bit behind the rest of the country because people just naturally make a mental connection between the words "Oregon" and "rain". And some people are REALLY adverse to rain as though you told them we get 180 days of sniper fire annually.

Happy Friday Folks!

Oregon has ranked high in all the objective surveys on business climate for years. It is only subjective rankings of anti-tax folks that give us low points and this is only because we have high personal income taxes, not business taxes.

A business-friendly environment doesn't always equate to something tangible. It's often the attitude, or the pace at which a local, state, or regional government is willing to work to be innovate, responsive, and have a problem-solving approach.

For those of you who haven't seen, Sen. Wyden has issued a press release asking the BPA to find ways to solve power infrastructure issues so facebook can continue to expand and create jobs in Prineville. Unfortunately, BPA's timeline for upgrades to its system aren't scheduled until 2014 - well beyond the needs of facebook. And this isn't just a facebook issue: other users (large and small) also face power access issues due to substation, transmission, or other upgrades needed to access power within the system.

My point is this: if a state or any jurisdiction is unresponsive to the needs of businesses, and isn't willing to solve problems, then that can create an "unfriendly" business environment. I work with site selectors (the consultants that companies hire to find site locations), and if they believe a state or region is too difficult to work with - even if it has great assets - they will advise their clients to go elsewhere.

Having a good quality of life, access to services, health insurance, etc., or even a low ranking in terms of overall tax burden doesn't always equal success in terms of creating family-wage jobs. If the regulatory environment is too cumbersome through land-use, planning, permitting, power acquisition or water and sewer capacity - then businesses will go elsewhere.

This is reality. I've seen it happen, and this is the world in which I operate on a daily basis.

There is a fine balance in the stats. Many people in Oregon tend to be very anti-business voting taxes against businesses every chance they get. The fact is progressives hate producers and want them out or want their earnings. It is a peasant voter class of non-producers vs those who simply want to make a living. There is a total ignorant class warfare mentality here where people rent their home and vote for property taxes, where they do not produce anything, nor pay taxes nor give to charity and they vote for social programs. This is why Oregon has an anti-business reputation with many people. On the other side of the issue once we remove the peasant voter and tax issues, Oregon is very easy to start a business in. Many businesses in Oregon are not a highly regulated as they are in other states and this tends to help Oregon. It is very easy for example to incorporate here. You can do it in 5 minutes online. There are many fields in Oregon one can go into without State oversight. Another great attraction for example is no sales Tax (even the peasants won't vote for that since they too purchase goods). Less paperwork for small businesses helps new people start up. If you look at the rest of the nation, Oregon is fairly free in comparison because those same peasants who vote in taxes often vote against expanding the police state. With the bad comes the good as well. While taxes are a form of coercion so are right wing police state polices. One can cancel out or even overcome the other to some extent. I have a dream that one day we will all be free and we will not have to choose between left wing and right wing statism. That we will choose liberty and justice for all.