MASSACHUSETTS’ MISTAKES: Reader Jim Meigs emails:

Your link to the American Interest piece on Massachusetts’ bizarre anti-innovation tax reminded me of when I interviewed tech visionary Dean Kamen a few years ago for Popular Mechanics.

He started his first medical device business as a teenager literally in his parents’ basement on Long Island. The business took off and Kamen and his team eventually decided to leave Long Island and started looking for a better location for their high-tech business. They considered California and Boston (where a lot of their customers at research hospitals were based). But on his many trips to the Boston area, Kamen often noticed cars from New Hampshire, with their “Live Free Or Die” license plates. That sounded pretty good to him, so he drove up to take a look at the famously low-tax and pro-business state. They eventually settled in Manchester NH and today Kamen’s current company, DEKA Research and Development Corporation, sits in a row of beautifully reconditioned old textile mills on the banks of the Merrimack River where the company anchors a cluster of vibrant tech companies. I doubt Kamen has ever regretted not basing his business in Silicon Valley or Boston’s Route 128 loop.

More on Massachusetts’ idiotic policy here.