Money is a powerful incentive. It helps explain why Micron Technology, the Idaho-based memory chip manufacturer, is looking to set up shop outside Syracuse — an area with no historical link to the company, or to semiconductor manufacturing.

State officials, hoping to break Central New York out of its economic doldrums, promised Micron $5.5 billion in cash-like incentives in 2022.

But on top of that, Albany offered the company a whole lot more to overcome obstacles and costs that other New York businesses routinely face.

From now on every business owner in the state, looking at his or her own challenges, their tax bills, their regulatory burden, should be asking the question: How different would things be if my company was a politically favored project being announced by the governor? What favors would Albany do for me?

What would Micron get?

Call it “the Micron test.” The answers help identify the ways and extent to which New York makes it artificially difficult to do business — and outlines specific changes that could make doing business easier.

For starters, Micron got a big head-start in getting through SEQR (pronounced “seeker”), New York’s onerous........

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