Virtually every state has some kind of economic development incentive program. Virtually every one of them has a better business climate than New York does. Yet New York, which is famous for stepping on its own feet, has called an end to its Empire Zone program, thus rendering the nation’s least competitive state even less competitive. Why would anyone want to do business here?

No one disputed that the state’s poorly administered Empire Zone program needed to be changed, but New York did it in the most disruptive—and, frankly, dishonest—way that it could. It changed the rules in midstream for companies that had already made business decisions based on the existing structure of the program. Going forward, companies will have to meet more stringent rules—and, unless the pro-gram is extended, with or without modifications, it “sunsets” on June 30.

The consequence of these radical, ill-considered changes is that businesses don’t know what to expect and, thus, they can’t plan. More bluntly, they don’t trust New York. There’s no reason they should. The state flat-out reneged on deals it struck with many businesses and even those who retained their benefits (including Geico) have to wonder how secure their own agreements are.

New York needs to do better than this. Because the state’s business climate is so bad—New Yorkers shoulder the nation’s heaviest tax burden—it needs artificial means to level the playing field against competing states that are more business-friendly, that also offer incentives and that haven’t deigned to yank them out from under the companies that use them.

This is crucial to the state’s economic fortunes. It needs to restore benefits to companies that lost them in the spring purge and establish reasonable new criteria for future beneficiaries, such as more firm commitments to job creation. More fundamentally, it needs to send the believeable message that business can trust this government.

That need is so simple, and failure to meet it is so outrageous.

New York consistently ranks among the top three states driving businesses away. Empire Zones, while needing reform, helped offset some of the factors that cost this state businesses, and produced jobs that wouldn’t have been here otherwise. In the case of GEICO, that’s 1,500 high-paying jobs that were set to go to another state.

It also gave huge breaks that deserve questioning—for example, incentives applied to a waterfront condo development with some units running over a million dollars in an area where other developments did not enjoy the same ad-vantages. Program changes are indeed necessary.

But what remains outrageous is Albany’s inability to understand the need for this type of program, and the differences between good and bad practices. The Legislature must keep a good Empire Zone program, or suffer the loss of many jobs. And it has to learn to separate the good practices from the bad, and fix only what needs fixing.