Washington is one of the best places to do business… .

We hear that line a lot, it seems. Recently, Forbes Magazine ranked Washington third best among all states for places to do business. Upon this news, reporters boasted and politicians took credit.

So why are Washington businesses complaining if things are so good here?

It turns out that it depends on how you measure success. Viewed differently, Washington, by many standards, is not at all an easy place to do business.

Our ranking in Forbes may not so much be that we have created an environment that attracts businesses to us as it is that the two Bill’s – Bill Boeing and Bill Gates – happened to be from the Seattle area and their businesses were started here, fostering other businesses around them. Boeing, though, has moved its administrative headquarters to Chicago, of course, largely on the basis of Illinois being a better place for it to do business.

Employing people is expensive in Washington. The business owner in Washington pays one of the highest employment security taxes in the nation. It’s the kind of tax that you’d see in a state with a history of high-paying manufacturing jobs. But for the vast majority of other businesses, it’s a big drag on profits.

Our real estate development climate is problematic for some businesses considering Washington.

Red tape and our reputation for opposing growth generally mean businesses choose other states over Washington routinely.

The Tri-Cities learned this the hard way when earlier this year it lost Areva, a French company interested in building a $2 billion plant for 400 workers there. They chose Idaho instead.

Lost opportunities do not make it into the surveys.

If a family-owned business beats the odds and succeeds, it then receives a form of punishment for its success with a high state death tax. This has the effect of inviting businesses to move out of Washington to avoid it or having to sell out just to pay the tax.

Perhaps the most concerning statistic is that Washington ranks near the top among the 50 states in the rate of business failures.

In weighing success, it’s hard to imagine that any state with a high rate of business failures could rank among the top places to do business. Something is missing in this survey.

We have a lot going for us, for sure. But we have a long way to go before we can be truly a top-ranked state.

Examining tax policy, addressing the high rate of business failures, and borrowing ideas from other states that are truly ranked high for doing business is the first step.

And, until that business failure rate drops, we should never boast about our great business climate in Washington.