Vermont is the most expensive state in the Union in which to do business.

A dollar’s worth of manufactured goods costs 95.9 cents to produce here, waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay above — like 15% more than — the national average of 83.3 cents. In contrast, the cost is 93.5 cents next door in New Hampshire, 93 cents in Rhode Island, and 79.3 cents in 43rd-ranked Connecticut. Oregon, where it costs just 70.6 cents to produce a dollar’s worth of manufactured goods, is the least expensive state for manufacturing.

A new University of Connecticut study, High Wages, Low Costs: A Connecticut Paradox, calculated the costs of labor and materials used in production, taxes and license fees, and annual capital costs such as depreciation, rental payments and interest, for every state.

“The November election will bring a new round of claims about Connecticut’s high wages, exorbitant rents, burdensome taxes, overall lack of competitiveness and resulting job losses,” the study claimed.

Greg Hayes, United Technologies CFO, told investors “any place outside of Connecticut is low cost.”

Although Connecticut voters incorrectly accept the mantra of their “unfriendly” business environment as fact, Vermont workers, struggling with years of rising taxes and rising costs, are not so lucky.

The two selling points for building boats in Vermont were the “Made in Vermont” branding and the access to one-third of the U.S. boating market within 600 miles.

One of my clients, a small foundry with operations in the U.S. and Canada, has shut down most operations in Vermont. “It’s just too expensive,” the owner says.

The study showed that Mr. Hayes was partly wrong but that my own analysis and my clients are right.

The extra $151,000 in cost for a small business like mine to manufacture a million dollars worth of goods here generally comes right out of the owner’s pocket. And that, in a dragging economy, hurts Vermont workers.

Small businesses create more jobs even than the Feds but even the New York Times has noticed that ObamaNation tax policies will at best not help small business and will actually make it more difficult for them to grow. And that just piles on top of what happens here in Vermont. Bye bye jobs, doncha know.

A business can cut jobs, cut the cost of labo(u)r, and cheapen up on materials. When building costs, rental payments, and interest get out of hand they can move. What do they do when they have done all that?

Taxes and license fees, and tax policies such as depreciation write offs are political. Too bad that we have J. Wellington Wimpy at the helm of a government that believes in raising taxes, raising the debt limit, and (by the way) raising spending, all when we don’t have the money for even one cheeseburger.

I wonder. What would Popeye do?

Some time ago, the Vermont Tax Department notified the Flynn Center for the Performing Arts that it owes $190,000 for taxes on tickets from the past three years of ticket sales. That past due tax notice would be forgiven by a new bill just passed in Montpelier but the bill ensures collection going forward.

The Vermont House and Senate negotiating committee and the governor all signed off on “Challenges for Change” late last week. The bill includes a 6% sales tax on tickets to cultural institutions and performing arts events presented by non-profit cultural organizations like the All Arts Council or the Flynn. Organizations with admission revenue over $50,000 must collect this tax starting next year.

“The committee did it in the dark of the night at the end of the session,” State Senator Randy Brock (R-Franklin County) told me about the section of the bill meant to clarify the question of admissions taxes.

“The Senate took no testimony” on this, so it went forward unvetted. he said. That leaves the legislature with some unanswered questions.

The controversial efficiency bill has a lot to like. “Challenges for Change” is (relatively) small. It appears to save some money. It changes the way government does business. It is the first law ever passed that concentrates on outcomes.

Unfortunately, it is not the first time the legislature has snuck a new tax into an otherwise good bill.

Let the finger pointing begin.

“What we didn’t anticipate was that the bill would take away our ability to do things we could do before there was a Challenges bill,” Tom Evslin told the Times Argus. “That may be the largest problem.” Mr. Evslin is Vermont’s Chief Recovery Officer and the Douglas Administration’s Technology chief.

Gubernatorial candidate Peter Shumlin (D-Windham County) responded that the administration “might not understand the bill as well as they need to.”

Sorry, Mr. Shumlin. I think we understand the bill just fine.

The legislature took a pretty nice concept — the Challenges Bill specifies the broad areas for savings and identifies those outcomes state agencies and programs must achieve — and mucked it up with “oh my God, you can’t do that” restrictions. Then the legislature added new “revenue sources” like the tax on your concert tickets.

The downside to the new admission tax is two-fold. (1) Ticket prices at larger venues and events will rise which means ticket buyers will pay more. (2) Rather than cutting spending in times of reduced revenue, the House and Senate conference committee opted to create yet another new tax.

I live in the real world. I’ve had to tighten my belt, Mr. Shumlin. Part of the reason I had to tighten my belt is that you raised my taxes. Again.