Business Leaders Urge Inslee to Extend Boeing Offer to All Washington Industries

Business advocates are pushing Gov. Jay Inslee to extend the incentives he is offering Boeing to other industries across Washington state.

A letter signed by over two dozen business leaders, including several from the Tri-Cities, was given to the governor Thursday.

The letter urges Inslee not to forget there is a need for economic incentives to produce jobs outside of Seattle. Some excerpts from the letter:

Communities outside of the greater Seattle metropolitan area also need your help in fostering the kind of business climate that will encourage the growth of family wage jobs. But there sometimes seem to be two standards applied to such matters. When it comes to economic development in Central Puget Sound, government throws out the welcome mat, but elsewhere not so much.

 

The business leaders and mayors went on to say :

Not all areas of the state have access to the ability to make airplanes and software. In many cases, the economies of the more rural and suburban parts of Washington are fueled by more traditional industries. And they have the right to rely upon an ability to utilize the state’s port, road and rail transportation infrastructure every bit as much as the residents of the more populous counties. Services like rail transportation are not just reserved for the larger cities, only to become a potential environmental “impact” when needed to spur the economies of other regions.

The polite but hard-hitting message definitely gets its point across:

If fundamental fairness matters at all in the application of government actions, then this leaves you and your administration with a practical choice: either apply the same laws and standards to all projects or apply the same laws with differential standards to different projects. Since the latter would be offensive to American standards of equity, the first choice is the obvious one

The letter is signed by at least five powerful and influential Mid-Columbia business leaders. To read the letter in its entirety, click on the button below.