Telegraph Editorial: Don’t Let Rhetoric Distort N.H.’s Business Achievements

June 12, 2012 | 4:58 PM

By Emily Corwin

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Do New Hampshire politicians only put on their New Hampshire Advantage glasses when it’s convenient?

The Nashua Telegraph has an editorial today urging Granite Staters to “resist distortion” of New Hampshire’s business image by candidates during election season. “Let’s guard against those candidates who would distort the state’s business-friendly reputation for sheer political expediency,” the Telegraph states, which is “pretty much what happened two years ago, when Republican nominee John Stephen spent a good part of the campaign lambasting Gov. John Lynch for presiding over a state that sports ‘the highest business tax rate in the nation.'”

The Telegraph refers to a much-reported survey from the Kauffman Foundation and Thumbtack.com — published May 8th — to suggest that New Hampshire is already one of the nation’s most business-friendly states.

During the 2010 gubernatorial race, the New Hampshire Business Review published a piece parsing the state’s business climate. That story suggested that while politicians focus on the well-being of small businesses in the state, it is large corporations and manufacturers for whom New Hampshire is not as business-friendly.

“In general,” Michael Bergeron of the New Hampshire Business Resource Center told NHBR, “businesses need little incentive other than the state’s low tax burden to choose to remain in or relocate to New Hampshire.”  However, David Juvet of the Business Industry Association responded that “there doesn’t seem to be the same level of concern or interest in the state’s larger businesses… and especially the manufacturing community, which is unfortunate, because that sector of the economy contributes a tremendous amount way disproportionate to their size to the bottom line of the state budget and they are a tremendous source of employment to this state.”

We recommend you check out the Thumbtack.com/Kauffman Foundation’s national and statewide maps of business friendliness, as well as this post from State Impact’s Amanda Loder, breaking down regional disparities in New Hampshire’s business climate.