Severson has advice for Minnesota businesses: Head for the border
February 6, 2013 at 3:45 am in New Richmond News
You’d be better off in Wisconsin, says a western Wisconsin legislator in an open letter addressed yesterday to Minnesota businesses. Rep. Erik Severson (R-Osceola), who represents part of St. Croix County, says Gov. Mark Dayton’s budget proposal shows Minnesota’s businesses are more welcome in Wisconsin.
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A form letter sent to 3M and Best Buy. Like those will get read.
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Good idea making business owners sound too stupid to know the difference in what state they do business in. Good Job. There’s a reason Wisconsin is at the bottom or near the bottom in job growth. They know it, and we know it, the Teapublicans just don’t care to acknowledge it.
Mr. Severson, Go stand at the border and hold a sign that says “open for business” I heard that’s the ticket. It makes business’s fly in. Oh wait
Hot debate. What do you think?
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Derks, Wisconsin does lag in job growth, but it is not at the bottom. Wisconsin’s lag is not a recent problem and was first observed in the mid-1990s and has primarily been attributed to the state’s aging population. It is the lack of labor, not the quality of labor that has caused job growth to lag in Wisconsin. In contrast, this is what Govern Dayton stated while campaigning for governor: “Our employment growth averaged in the bottom 10 among the 50 states during the past decade.” (February 9, 2010). Either Governor Dayton was wrong in his assertion or Minnesota doesn’t have much to brag about. In either case, my hunch is that higher income taxes, higher sales taxes and the imposition of business to business sales taxes are not going to increase interest in locating businesses in Minnesota. It is appalling that governor Dayton has chosen to implement some of the most regressive forms of tax while at the same time increasing the budget spending. It is also puzzling to me how he can continually assert that property tax is one of the most unfair of all the taxes yet he has offered no changes to the property tax system (offering “property tax refunds” of $500 does nothing to change a system he has singled out as one of the least fair taxes). You state that there is a reason Wisconsin lags in job growth, yet you don’t identify what you believe that reason to be; what is it that you have discovered that numerous economists have previously missed?
While I believe that very few businesses and individuals will relocate to avoid higher taxes, that doesn’t mean higher taxes are necessarily a good idea. Governor Dayton campaigned on a theme of taxing the rich to capitalize on a growing envy of people who are successful and a theme of taking a balanced approach to balancing the budget. His approach is virtually devoid of spending cuts and increases taxes and spending; in my opinion that is not a balanced approach. The income tax changes result in an increase of 23% for individuals making over $150,000 per year. Annual income of $150,000 is a far cry from the “millionaires” that Governor Dayton believed needed to be subjected to a tax increase. The picture that was painted was that the tax increases were going to be imposed only on people who were characterized as being just like Richie Rich from the comic books. Increased income taxes cause little distress to individuals who are already wealthy but they do create a huge impediment for anyone who wants to achieve the goal of becoming wealthy; if you have a billion dollars you’ll still have a billion after the income tax increase, but if you have nothing and want to start to accumulate assets the more income that gets taken away the less likely you are to be able to accumulate wealth. Increased income taxes do generate revenue from the wealthy, but they also are very effective at preventing anyone else from becoming wealthy. Frankly, I think Governor Dayton just thinks that his country club is getting too crowed and he prefer that nobody else becomes wealthy enough to join.
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State taxes have little to do with why a company locates where it does. A well educated workforce is far more important. That’s why Wisconsin is losing jobs. Governor Dayton is increasing state education funding and Minnesota will be more competitive than Wisconsin for that reason.
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Swifty, I agree that a highly educated workforce is a positive in job creation. However, increased spending does not necessarily equate to better results. Education spending has continually increased for decades, even when adjusted for inflations. Despite the increased spending achievement has decreased. Education is critical and should be a priority. Mindless spending simply for the purpose of spending on education does nothing to achieve that priority.
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Entertainment and amenities attract the type of employees major corporations are looking for. I don’t think Wisconsin has what it takes to compete with Minnesota.
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It’s no giveaway when you go to border towns. The cities in the state bordering MN is Growing much faster than the MN counterpart. Fargo, Sioux Falls are examples. Grand Forks is, but to a lesser degree.
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