Mary Nolan's economic development plan: "Repeat after me, 'Oregon is great for business'"

Oregon House majority leader Mary Nolan has a plan to bring back business to Oregon. It's simple: Just tell people that Oregon is a great place to do business. And then keep repeating it until some business believes it.

Mary Nolan has a reputation in Capitol for being one of the most anti-business Democrats in the building. But now she is belting out a tune from the same hymnal that the rest of the Salem's Democrats are singing from. The tune is, "Oregon is Great for Business."

Oregon is, objectively, a great place to do business. Oregon offers entrepreneurs and business leaders an educated and well-trained workforce; a strong transportation infrastructure; among the nation's most robust, low-cost workers' compensation systems, and, yes, the fifth-lowest business tax burden in the country.

You can expect Mary Nolan to support Oregon's business right around the same time you can expect Osama Bin Laden to deliver Easter Mass.


She names 2 solar cell companies (that have consume copious amounts of tax dollars through the Business Energy Tax Credit). Even the brewery she mentions made it's energy efficiency "investments" because the state's BETC program threw a bucket of money at the brewer.

After that, you get to play buzzword Bingo: solar, family wage jobs, biomass, livability. Remember you get to use clean-tech only once!