Delaware Needs Dynamic Leadership for a Dynamic Economy
By: Jane Brady, Chair, A Better Delaware
Well, it is a New Year, and time to consider what A Better Delaware believes the priorities should be for the next legislative session. As they say, “Let’s get down to business.”
For too long, Delaware has been complacent and passive in how it has generated the resources that support our government. Much of our revenue comes from a source which our government tends to take for granted – corporate taxes and fees.
Delaware has historically benefitted from the purposeful investments in the clarity of our corporate law and the consistency and certainty of our business court, the Court of Chancery. But that reliance has created a stagnation in our business and workforce development strategies that could prove to be disastrous to Delaware’s economy, even in the short term.
Long gone are the days when our legislators, and perhaps, now, even judges, knew and appreciated why and how our laws were developed to create a nationally unique business and legal culture. Laws and decisions that jeopardize our leadership in business formation and the selection of where to litigate disputes are beginning to erode our supremacy in the business and legal landscape. Business formations are down by about 10% since 2021. High profile cases and business entities have taken the headlines and encouraged competition, particularly in Nevada and Texas.
Delaware needs to take a dynamic approach to our economy that generates new, and grows existing, businesses that employ skilled workers in high paying jobs.
Where do we start? With education. We cannot continue to graduate 87% of the students who attend our high schools and yet show a performance at 40% or below in basic Math and English skills. Students deserve a more realistic assessment of their skills as they set expectations for their future and the business community needs to be able to rely on the fact that the workers they hire are competent and prepared to enter the workforce. More money is not the answer. For over 10 years, as we consistently spent more, performance has gone down. Offer parents a choice in selecting their child’s school. A child’s zip code should not determine the quality of their education.
We need to have policies that will allow for the generation, development and expansion of business. We should eliminate the regulatory stranglehold that we currently have on the business community. We need to reduce and eliminate certain taxes on businesses that take away from their ability to expand, hire new employees, buy new equipment and advance their technology. The gross receipts tax, which has been eliminated in many other states, should be repealed and we should eliminate fees that take, with unrelenting certainty, the incentive to expand or open new businesses away from the small business community.
We should allow the development of the former industrial sites in the coastal zone. Those sites are prime for enticing pharmaceutical research and development plants, which can take advantage of our mid-east coast location and easy shipping options.
State agencies have put a stranglehold on good companies willing to make an investment in Delaware. Several efforts have been thwarted by regulatory delay and excessive and unnecessary demands by that agency. The perspective of the agencies should be to encourage or promote development of businesses, in a way that is fair to the environment and our business and economic stability.
Our government needs to be more transparent and accountable. Recent requirements that employees execute non-disclosure agreements show how far removed our legislators’ perspective is from their obligation to let the public know what they are doing and how they are spending our money. Expanded Freedom of Information laws, the establishment of an Inspector General and a state ethics code for legislators with enforcement assurances should be adopted.
Finally, we need to bring common sense to the portion of the state budget that is spent on health care. Expanding government intervention into private and nonprofit businesses is not going to help them work better. Our state government has shown no understanding of real-life economic forces when it comes to generating and spending money. The legislature simply creates new resources (read, taxes and fees) to continue to expand the budget. Those private nonprofit businesses, however, have an obligation that goes directly to the people they serve, and those who are employed by them. We need to eliminate the provisions in HB 350, which put government appointees in charge of hospital budgets. We need to eliminate the certificate of need, which conclusively has been shown to reduce access to, and increase the cost of, healthcare. And the state needs to be more fair in how and when it imposes assessments on its employees and retirees in response to increases in health care costs. Rather than pass on, incrementally, the increases in costs that the state has sustained in health care, politicians neglected to do so for years, and now the increase is so substantial that everyone is up in arms about the hike. We also need to assess what we are covering and evaluate the amount of co-pay fees for various procedures for state insured patients.
There are many other issues we could add to this list, but these are our top priorities. Delaware used to be, and can be, a dynamic business generator, with scores of solvent businesses that offer high paying and skilled job opportunities. But the end result has to start with policies established by committed leaders who understand the role that they can play in creating the environment in which our citizens, businesses and state can thrive.
Our wish for the New Year is that Delaware’s business, legal and political leaders step up to the challenge.
Jane Brady serves as Chair of A Better Delaware. She previously served as Attorney General of Delaware and as a Judge of the Delaware Superior Court.