Texas No. 1 on ‘Best-for-Business’ State List for CEOs
Texas ranked as the No. 1 state for business in a recent survey (May 24, 2010) of CEOs published in “Chief Executive” magazine.
Closely following in the poll of 651 CEOs were North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and Nevada. Rounding out the top 10 were Florida, Georgia, Colorado, Utah, and South Carolina.
As for the bottom of the barrel, California led the way, followed by New York, Michigan, New Jersey, and Massachusetts.
“Texas is pro-business with reasonable regulations, while California is anti-business with anti-business regulations,” one CEO told the magazine.
The CEOs ranked states in three main categories: taxes and regulation, skill of the workforce, and quality of living.
Perhaps not coincidentally, nine of the top 10 — Colorado is the exception — are among the 22 right-to-work states in the country, meaning that state law forbids forcing employees to join a union to be able to work. Meanwhile, all five of the states the CEOs ranked on the bottom do not have such laws.
In addition, six of the 10 states CEOs like rank below the national median for household income, while four of the bottom five are above the median.
Texas is where 70 percent of all new U.S. jobs created since 2008 are based, according to Chief Executive. The Lone Star State’s tax credits and incentives for businesses that move or expand there are among the most generous in the country.
So it’s no wonder that CEOs like Texas.
“You feel like state government understands the value of business and industry to create jobs and growth,” one CEO said.
As for the golden state, “California is terrible,” one CEO said.
“Even when we’ve paid their high taxes in full, they still treat every conversation as adversarial. It’s the most difficult state in the nation. We have actually walked away from business rather than deal with the government in Sacramento.”
Bill Dormandy, CEO of San Francisco medical device maker ITC, said, “California has a good living environment but is unfavorable to business and the state taxes are not survivable. Nevada and Virginia are encouraging business to move to their states with lower tax rates and less regulatory demands.”
Full article by Dan Weil, Newsmax.com
In this apropos April 22, 2010 excerpt from National Review Online, Kevin D. Williamson describes the Texas economy in Texas vs. California: Unions, Taxes, and Spending:
“Texas today is home to 6 of the 25 largest cities in the country, more than any other state. Texas has a trillion-dollar economy that would make it the 15th-largest national economy in the world if it were, as some of its more spirited partisans sometimes idly suggest it should be, an independent country. By one estimate, 70 percent of the new jobs that were created in the United States in 2008 were created in Texas. Texas is home to America’s highest-volume port, the largest medical center in the world, and the headquarters of more Fortune 500 companies than any other state (Houston having almost double the number of any other city in Texas) having surpassed New York in 2008. While the Rust Belt mourns the loss of manufacturing jobs, Texans are building Bell helicopters and Lockheed Martin airplanes, Dell computers and TI semiconductors. Always keeping an eye on California, Texans have started bottling wine and making movies. And there’s still an automobile industry in America, but it’s not headquartered in Detroit: A couple thousand Texans are employed building Toyotas, and none of them is a UAW member. “