A few weeks ago, Forbes once again listed Maine as the least business friendly state in the country. The magazine wrote: “Maine suffers from energy costs 31% above the national average, stagnant population growth and anemic forecasts when it comes to job and gross state product growth.”

This is in spite of the fact that Gov. Paul LePage posted a sign at the welcome center within days of his inauguration insisting the state was “open for business.”

Surprisingly, he agreed with Forbes, but didn’t necessarily agree with the reasons given.

In the last two years, LePage has had a great deal of latitude in reshaping Maine’s economic systems. With a Republicandominated Legislature, he has been able to push through painful cost-saving measures at the expense of state workers, the poor, the elderly and students. He dropped income taxes on the highest marginal rate, which led inexorably to deficit spending that led, this week, to a $35 million curtailment that will again hit public schools and welfare programs hardest.

His program to “cut red tape” for development and business combined some common-sense measures to move proposals more quickly through the system, but also ignored some real issues related to Maine’s environment, one of the main reasons new businesses relocate here.

Businesses aren’t flocking to Maine in exchange for lower taxation rates and regulatory reform, as promised. In Le- Page’s first two years, there has been a net loss of business start-ups, and failures to seal deals with new businesses thought to be in the bag, such as the program to develop and build the Kestrel aircraft, a small private jet, in Brunswick.

Kestrel went instead to the Midwest, citing Maine’s high energy costs and the inability to secure $80 million from Maine and the nonprofit Coastal Enterprises Inc. of Wiscasset.

Kestrel Aeroworks maintains a small facility in Brunswick, but the 600 manufacturing jobs will be sited in Wisconsin.

Even though the aircraft manufacturer didn’t deliver on promises to bring needed jobs to the Mid-coast, the Midcoast Regional Redevelopment Authority wanted to grant the company big tax breaks anyway.

This didn’t sit well with the town of Brunswick, which wanted the property taxes due the town.

MRRA threatened to sue the town, and the LePage administration then submitted L.R. 492, a bill that is supposed to “clarify” tax situations for aviation companies that agree to site themselves in Maine.

However, Kestrel reneged on the major portion of the agreement to site in Maine. Only 35 people work at the Brunswick site, instead of the expected 600. MRRA, in hoping to lure other aeronautical companies to the former navy base, argues that Kestrel, which makes private planes for millionaires, should be tax-exempt.

MRRA paid the first half of Kestrel Aeroworks’ $116,700 annual tax bill under protest. If L.R. 492 passes, the town may have to refund the money.

In LePage’s first year in office, Maine lost 1,300 jobs. In 2012, Moody’s dropped Maine’s outlook from “stable” to “negative.”

Then, in December, Forbes relabeled Maine the worst place to do business.

Energy is a major reason why Maine’s business prospects are so bad. While Maine’s energy costs aren’t terribly out of line with the rest of New England, we are not often competing with New England for jobs.

For example, Bath Iron Works competes with a single company — Northrop Grumman’s Avondale shipyard, based in Mississippi, where energy costs are nearly 10 cents per kilowatthour less than they are in Maine.

Maine has many energy alternatives, such as ocean wind, which, after the initial period of paying for equipment, would be almost free; and wood pellet power for heat, which heats effectively for less than a quarter of what oil costs. The closing of Maine Yankee drove Maine to a mostly natural gasbased system for electricity. New options such as tidal energy are on the horizon and will also prove to be effective, reliable and inexpensive. But not if we don’t invest in them now.

Trucking in natural gas from Pennsylvania and other places only moves the environmental damage elsewhere. While natural gas has a role as the changeover happens to renewable energies, the solution that would drop energy prices over the long term would be cheap renewables.

If “red tape” is going to be cut, that’s where it should probably happen to make Maine truly “open for business.”

But Maine has other problems.

Education is a serious problem. We are not spending what it takes to bring our students up to the level needed by new technologies; nor are we spending what it takes to keep the cost of higher education low enough for students in Maine to choose to attend even a state school.

Maine is also aging. The average age of a person in Maine is 47, which gives them about 20 productive years before retirement. Businesses are looking for younger, healthier populations.

This problem is far more difficult to deal with from a policy perspective, but there are things that could be done.

Making interstate adoptions easier in Maine would be a way to begin to solve the problem. Increasing the number of people who come in to the state as refugees or encouraging migration from other states would begin to solve the issue. And “selling” New England’s thrifty and hardworking seniors as possible choices for employees would be a way to encourage companies to value experience over malleability.

The tried and true GOP solution — drop income tax rates — clearly isn’t working. Instead, it’s left Maine with a deficit that will, once again, be borne by those who can least afford to bear it, either for themselves or from a long-term business perspective: students, the poor and sustainable energy.

With luck, the new Legislature will prove to be less of a rubber stamp and help to drive debate in a new direction.

GINA HAMILTON, of Bath, is editor of the New Maine Times. She welcomes emails at [email protected].