Woe is us, we're so uncertain!

Vermont Business Roundtable Chairman Steve Voigt, who is CEO of King Arthur Flour, explained, “We believe that these data also reflect a hesitation among our CEOs that is related to the current debate around health care reform in Vermont and the nation. We polled our members on this topic and found it to be a major source of concern; there are still many cost-related reform questions yet to be answered, and this makes future investment decisions regarding people or plant difficult to make at best. We must remember that while growth indicators have been trending upward nicely since early 2009, these changes are still fragile.”

Patricia McDonald, chairwoman of the Vermont Republican Party, responded with a warning to the state’s dominant political party.

“With the economic recovery stalling out and many Vermonters struggling to make ends meet, news that business leaders in our state are holding back due to uncertainty created, in part, by the single-payer health care proposal should serve as a wake-up call to the Governor and Democrats that their policies are harming job creation in Vermont,” McDonald said.

Not really.  It's the demand, stupid.

State taxes only account for about 1.2% of the cost of doing business, and as Paul O'Neill, former Bush Treasury Secretary and CEO of Alcoa, said: I never made an investment decision based on the Tax Code.  So it really doesn't matter how we're going to pay for it, so long as it's equitable and doesn't put too much on the shoulders of Vermont consumers, who are the real drivers of our economy.

Big business is sitting on huge piles of cash thanks to the lowest tax burdens in a generation, record profits, and increased worker productivity.  If the GOP–national and state–want to address the uncertainty canard, all they have to do is agree to dispense with their discredited Voodoo Economics, increase the top marginal rate on a mere fraction of a percent of the wealthiest people on earth, help push for cost-saving Medicare-for-all, and put more money in the pockets of the people who actually make the economy hum.

ntodd

PS–Why is the Freep acting like a press release for the VBR and GOP?