Concern over uncertainty and too much regulation dominates job creation forum in Richmond
By JR Hoeft | Thursday, May 19th, 2011 | Policy
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor hosts a jobs forum at Virginia Commonwealth University
The purpose of the forum was to listen to the concerns of job creators in an effort to better inform potential legislation in Congress and improve the regulatory conditions for job creation.
The panel consisted of a diverse group of professionals, including:
- Robert Skunda, President and CEO of the Virginia Bio Technology Research Park in Richmond, VA
- Neil Amin, CEO of Shamin Hotels of Chester, VA
- Elizabeth Bentley, EVP of Retail Banking for Union First Market Bank in Ruther Glen, VA
- John Biagas, President and CEO of Bay Electric Co., Inc. in Newport News, VA, and
- Fletcher Magnum, Managing Partner at Magnum Economic Consulting in Richmond, VA
The words used consistently by all throughout the entire forum: over-burdensome regulations and uncertainty.
When speaking about the National Labor Relations Board, Biagas said that “It’s unconscionable that we are discriminating against 90% of the workforce, which is non-union, for the betterment of union contracts. These project labor agreements are very discriminatory, and they hurt us.”
Biagas went onto say that regulations have forced six of his subcontractors off of a project. “All the regulations coming down from Washington are very tough,” he said.
Amin said that capital from banks to invest in building projects is effectively frozen, with new loans not being granted and existing loans being renegotiated
“What it does is there is a certain level of uncertainty; that we don’t know what’s coming down the line at the end of the tunnel in terms of the banking industry or regulatory industry. What are they going to ask from us next?” he said.
The forum continued on the same theme for the better part of an hour, dealing with everything from the complexities of the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill to the burdens placed on small businesses by the ever rising costs of fuel and out-of-control federal agencies.
Ultimately, what the forum came down to is the stark reality regarding government that’s debated on this website everyday: what is its proper role in job creation and the protection of the consumer?
Magnum was very quick to point out that government can, indeed, create jobs. But he went onto say that it is only the private sector that can sustain jobs, growth, and an economy.
And regarding regulation, it was noted that there are more than 22 federal agencies that touch job safety.
Other issues were also addressed in the discussion, including accelerating the patent process and protecting intellectual property rights, as well as eliminating the estate tax, or “death tax”, which Cantor views as a double-tax on business-owners.
Cantor is clearly laying the groundwork for the next round of Congressional activity. While the debate still rages over debt ceilings and trying to get the federal government’s “fiscal house in order”, Cantor promises that generating private sector growth will be the next legislative priority.
To view the entire forum, please visit UStream (skip to about the 3 minute mark due to volume).
To hear Congressman Cantor’s closing remarks (about six minutes) listen here – this is my recording from the mult-box, so it’s good.
Finally, I had the opportunity to participate in the press conference following the forum where Cantor spoke on a wide range of topics from energy, to regulation, having the United States go into default, to the purpose of the forum, to FEMA, to Osama bin Laden. You can listen to that entire press conference here (about 10 minutes). For what it’s worth, I find what Senators Webb and Warner have done the past two days unhelpful regarding advancing Virginia’s domestic energy production.
Update: Here’s a transcript of some of Cantor’s remarks at the event –
On Washington Partnering with Small Businesses and Entrepreneurs: “Start-up businesses, as we know, are disproportionately responsible for job creation. In fact, I think most people would say job creation comes from small businesses. The Kauffmann Foundation did a study about a year ago which demonstrated that it’s not just small businesses; it is the three to five year old small businesses that are disproportionality responsible for job creation. So if we know that to be the case, and if you take Fletcher [Mangum’s] statement that it’s not the government jobs we are after – it’s those jobs that are economically sustainable that we’re after – why wouldn’t we be tilting our policies towards making it more favorable for start-ups?…That’s exactly what the focus in Washington needs to be. We need to be looking at policies that help start-up entrepreneurs grow jobs.”
On Creating Economic Growth: “That’s really what we are about, an incentive based economy where people don’t have any hindrance, as far as government is concerned, to go about taking the risk and creating wealth. For too long the attitude from Washington has been – we have to seek revenues from wherever we can to fund this behemoth of a federal bureaucracy. And we have come to the point where we can’t do it anymore. The more the government takes out of the private sector, the less incentive there is for small businesses to grow. We need that growth engine. The country won’t be the country we know without that growth engine.”
On Securing Our Energy Future: “We believe firmly that in order to secure an energy future for the country you have to start with maximizing energy production here at home, and that includes fossil fuels. We have gotten into a pretty robust debate at the federal level about whether it is appropriate for us to continue to tap into our resources both on and off shore. I always like to say that the Virginia legislature and our Governor have led the way, because we are the only state on the East Coast that has said we want to see deep sea exploration off our coast, because not only does it help contribute to a national energy policy and our national security, it will also help promote jobs in the Commonwealth.”
On Regulatory Reform: “We know that the SBA has admitted that regulations are impacting $1.75 trillion worth of economic activity yearly. If that’s not bad enough, in 2009, the number of new regulations coming down the pike from Washington were 184 new ones in the work place. That is why we in the House are committed to bringing to the floor a bill that will require congressional approval of any regulation coming out of a federal agency that negatively impacts the economy in a significant way. We just can’t continue to have unintended consequences play out the way they have.”
On Bringing Down Corporate Tax Rates and Making America Competitive: “We are in a global economy, we have to realize that we are not just competing against North Carolina or Tennessee; we are competing against the world now. We have some really strong competitors in Asia, China, India and elsewhere. We have to take a look at ourselves and say we are Americans, but that isn’t enough to attract businesses any more. If you ask CEOs that run businesses, they are going to question our tax laws, our regulatory environment, our litigation environment, as to whether we are still the best place to locate a business. We have to redouble our efforts and central to that is tax reform. That is why we are proposing to bring down and cut corporate tax rates to 25% so we can create more jobs. We are also looking at individual rates as well because many small businesses operate as pass through entities and we want equal incentive there so that entrepreneurs can begin to grow again. So with that I think you will see some activity throughout the rest of year on tax reform.”
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About the author
Conservative to the core; liberal with his opinion! J.R. has been involved in politics for over a decade and has worked on several campaigns in Hampton Roads. He has served on the Executive Committee of the Republican Party of Chesapeake and the Central Committee of the Republican Party of Virginia. He is also the director of “Blogs United” in Virginia. E-mail J.R.. Follow J.R. on Twitter.
Comments
9 Responses to "Concern over uncertainty and too much regulation dominates job creation forum in Richmond"
So we put five republican business manager’s in a room with the Lt Gov and Cantor and we find they are anti-government, anti-employee safety and anti-labor. Wow I’m surprised…
LOL
Corporations don’t pay taxes. Corporations treat taxes as costs to be passed through to shareholders. That said, corporations are not “persons” and should not be able to contribute to political campaigns as independent entities. What the hell were the supremes thinking? Cut the corporate tax rate to zero, and change campaign laws so that they cannot make political contributions. Otherwise, they will use their profits to continue to control government.
Small business is essential to the American economy, but it competes with big business and so big business uses the regulatory state to drive up employment costs to where the economies of scale favor larger companies. Any effort to deregulate economic activity is welcome, even if it comes from the craven Eric Cantor.
Obamacare is fatal to business in America. Isn’t that obvious? Isn’t it also obvious that it is being used to extract campaign contributions through the granting of waivers? Leviathan’s corrupt work on display for all to see. If we have a right to something, then if we cannot provide it for ourselves we also have the right to force others to provide it for us. Since there is so much unmet demand for health care, the demand for health care is essentially infinite and the demand curve goes parabolic. Anyone who has any understanding of economics understands what happens next to prices. But “costs” (read: prices) are controlled, so guess what? Supply constraints! Duh! Care becomes less available for everyone; and what is this called? “Rationed Care.” There is no alternative. It is, of course, mathematically impossible to provide more care for more people while reducing expenditures, unless one believes that the canard of “rooting out fraud and waste” is going to save $trillions. People believe that because they want to, not because it’s demonstrably true.
Logic, not emotion. Government fixes NOTHING. Everything government touches turns to crap.
I dont have a problem with employee safety regulations. That being said it would seem that there could be some kind of consolidation of the 22 agencies (maybe get it down to 5, or 10?) so as to reduce confusion and make the process of compliance easier. With that many agencies it is almost a given that you are going to have situations where the right hand does not know what the left hand is doing.
WB: I long for the day when we can finally wake up from the nightmare of the New Deal. What business is it of fed dot gov where an aircraft plant is going to be built? Please also explain to the republicans why it is acceptable for organized labor to price itself out of the market through the childlike behaviour of demanding ever-more.
Republicans: it is obvious that wealth controls the government at all levels. Wealth screens candidates and determines who the voters will actually get to “vote” for in general elections, rendering their votes meaningless in too many cases. As such, nearly all candidates are candidates with wealthy backers. Please explain to WB why organized labor is not needed as a counterweight to the obvious political power of wealth.
Cantor is so petrified of actually meeting with actual constituents that he must script a friendly event with predetermined comments and sound bites. Citizens beware; this conduct reveals the absolute commitment of Cantor and Boehner to balance the budget on the backs of the working men and women. The greed of the wealthy to further reduce their taxes is appalling, but what is worse is the way politicians like Cantor/Boehner do the wealthy’s bidding without so much as a wit of concern about the prosperity of the rest of us. Fact is, this nation is not immune to a movement like the Arab spring, which is a simply a universal revelation that the rich and powerful will dominate until they don’t.
The only way Cantor could have proved his point even more would have been to hold the event at the Country Club of Virginia.
One of the best things that could happen for small business is to reduce corporate tax rates, but not for the reasons usually cited. One reason that businesses get so big in the United States is the tax code. If you have a low rate many small business can compete with one large business, but when you raise the tax rate it becomes more economical (from a tax standpoint) to consolidate small business into larger businesses.
Think of it like this – if you make widgets from wood, you could have a small business that cuts the wood and sells it to the mill, a small mill that mills it and sells it to a retailer, a wood retailer that sells it to a small manufacturer, that manufacturer turns it into some kind of part, that part combined with other parts and value added, etc, it might all go through 20 businesses before it ends up being a product. Think how many times that chain gets taxed from the forest to the store shelves, at least 20, probably many times that. Now if one of those manufacturers buys up its supply chain, buys the mill, buys the retailer, etc, you end up with one MASSIVE company that doesn’t have nearly as many tax events and is able to deliver the product for a lot less money. Not a better product, mind you, probably a worse product because you lose the innovation of competing small businesses and end up with one monolithic business that makes whatever decisions it wants to, but it is a less expensive product for the simple reason that it is more tax efficient. Is that what we want ? No, we want the best product that is low in price because of competition, not junk that is cheaper just because of the way the tax code works.
Want to help small business ? Reduce corporate taxes to something closer to what the rest of the world pays so that small business can compete on merit and no simply on tax efficiency.
Progresses are always bitching about large corporations but it is their policies that create them. When you make it impossible for small businesses to complete because of high taxes, and you introduce so much red tape and regulation that only a huge company with a staff of lawyers can navigate through it, you create the very thing you say you are against. Huge companies promote some of these regulations for the “public good” because they know it will knock their competition out.
I totally agree with Mike and am shocked to see his comments printed here. My commnets have always been removed.
I live in Louisa County and remember what happen last summer when a democrat with a ticket came to a Cantor “town hall”
I have heard a lot of great things about The Virginia Alternative and Renewable Energy Association (VA-AREA). This group is working in partnership to enact pro-growth public policy to expand Virginia’s renewable energy industry, create jobs and attract investment to Virginia. Supporting their cause I feel will greatly help the Commonwealth out and I encourage anyone interested in sustainable energy to check out their website.
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