Tuesday, October 04, 2005

Jobs Lost Right in Mitt's Neighborhood

It looks like New Hampsire Governor John Lynch, a Democrat, has stolen a business away from Massachusetts right under Mitt Romney's nose. The Nashua Telegraph is reporting that Medical Equipment Exchange, formerly of Trapelo Road in Belmont, is now moving to Nashua in part due to a conversation Governor Lynch had with its owner, Bill Skelley on an airplane to Chicago. See, when Lynch travels out-of-state, he looks for jobs to bring back home. Romney, on the other hand, looks for punchlines. Seriously, how can you expect to lure business to your state if you're simultaneously trying to distance yourself from it? In any event, it's clear that New Hampshire has made bringing small businesses into their state, while this and other states focus solely on large enterprises.

So why was Lynch able to steal jobs away from Massachusetts? From the article:

When Skelley wanted to expand the building he owned in Belmont, Mass., he found the process "a challenge at best."
Belmont, where Romney makes his home, seems to be having a problem keeping businesses. I've noticed in a large amount of office space available in the Cushing Square area in particular, where Medical Equipment Exchange used to be. Romney promised to streamline the permitting process in Massachusetts, but like so many other things, he's decided to drop that and focus on sexier issues that play to the conservative base -- lowering taxes, the death penalty, gay marriage bans and so on. At the end of the day, none of those things will create a job unless it's easy for new commercial space to be built or existing space to be expanded or remodeled. If Romney were serious about governing, he'd realize that.

Thanks, by the way, to a tipster for pointing out the article.