What kind of economy and business environment do we most desire in Kentucky? What would be the characteristics of the ideal Kentucky, and what would be required to sustain it indefinitely?

The answers could provide a guide for public policy decisions, a desired state that influences our decision-making in elections and issues including taxation, public education, transportation, environmental protection, and economic development. With all 100 state House of Representative seats and half the State Senate up for election, and a gubernatorial election next year, there is no better time to set our course.

Kentucky has a long history of settling for what we can get, rather than deliberatively setting our course and seeking leaders with the courage to keep us on it. More often than not, state and local leaders act like they’re drowning in limitations: joblessness, low levels of workforce preparedness, low achieving public educational systems, public revenue needs, and high constituent expectations, to name a few. While these issues must be constructively addressed, our limitations should never be the guiding principles for attaining what we most desire.

Several contrasting events of 2006 have given us much to ponder relative to our state’s economic future. UPS announced a $1 billion investment to expand their already gigantic operation at Louisville International Airport. Toyota celebrated their 20th year in central Kentucky. The coal mining method known as mountaintop removal assumed high-priority status for many citizens, and casino gambling proponents failed to gain approval from the Kentucky General Assembly.

These events beg the question: do we want to facilitate an economic environment that cultivates and nurtures “empowering” businesses, firms that make substantial investments in their communities, provide strong wage and benefits packages to employees, create opportunities for other businesses to share in their prosperity, produce highly respected goods and services, and provide sustainable governmental revenue? Or will we again surrender to our unfortunate history of promoting “extractive” businesses, groups that simply take assets out of our state, damage the prospects of neighboring businesses, provide no tangible goods and services, and end up placing more of a burden on public treasuries than they contribute?

UPS and Toyota are strong examples of empowering corporate citizens. Both make substantial investments in their operations and communities, provide thousands of good jobs, create numerous opportunities for other businesses, provide globally revered goods and services, and make substantial contributions to government revenues. Agriculture, including the horse industry, has many similar economic characteristics.

On the other hand, we have some of the state’s leading politicians and some horse industry participants who want to saddle Kentucky with an extractive business, championing expanded gambling and casinos as a prerequisite for future prosperity. They want to create opportunities for extractive businesses that take capital out of our state, cultivate addiction, negatively affect other businesses, and cost government far more than they will ever contribute in public revenue.

Yet many horse people reject the casino agenda. They recognize that as the standard bearer of many traditions that Kentuckians most cherish, the horse industry is obliged to consider the cost of these projected gains. Among the costs to be considered are the required losses of others, the permanent change to Kentucky’s landscape and culture, not to mention the long-term future of Kentucky’s equine establishment. The solutions to what ail us will never be found in economic activity that depends on enormous losses by many for enormous gains of a few.

So what kind of business environment do we want? Is our greatest desire to support empowering businesses, or tolerate extractive businesses? Do we optimize our quality of life with employers who pay strong wages, provide good benefits, produce high-quality goods and services, invest in their operations and communities, and provide sustainable tax revenues? Or do we try to gamble our way to prosperity by inviting casinos, the most predatory, extractive form of business known today?

We don’t have to settle for anything less than our most desired state. The decisions we make at the ballot box over the next 14 months are key steps in setting our course, and a measure of our commitment to the optimum Commonwealth.

John-Mark Hack is a Woodford County businessman and Chairman of Say No To Casinos, a campaign against expanded gambling in Kentucky.