National business-powerhouse magazine Forbes released its list of top business-friendly statesand lo and behold, Washington state finds itself at number 5 --previously it had been at number 12. That's quite an improvement andthe Forbes article waxes eloquently about the number of largebusinesses and citizens with largess located in the Evergreen State.

No contrarian am I, but one particular business ranking does not a great business climate make.

TheForbes article spends a lot of print space hyping the glories ofBoeing, Amazon.com, Microsoft and other very large businesses (as wellthey should), and pointed out well-deserved accolades for creating astrong import/export industry and having one of the lowest unemploymentrates in our state's history. (Just who should take credit for theseanyway? That's another matter.)

But another story emerges whensmall businesses are taken into account. Everything is not so rosy forthem. Almost half of the businesses with fewer than 50 employees areable to afford quality health care, the Business & Occupation taxremains draconian, and Washington still ranks as 3rd in the nation withthe most business terminations per year.

Bottom line: things maybe good, but they could be better. This is particularly true for smallbusinesses, which make of 85% of registered businesses and employ 50%of the non-government workforce.

One last note. Washington Policy Center was pleased to see the Governor's Office of Regulatory Assistance'slife extended this past legislation session. But therein lies aninteresting dichotomy. See, we're glad government recognizes the manylayers of bureaucracy and regulations it created is a burden to thebusiness community. We just wish that rather than hiring moregovernment staff to help small businesses weave their way through allthis onerous regulation, they would instead relieve business owners ofmuch of the duplicative, unnecessary regulation. Read more about regulatory reform.