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| Braving the cold in Clovis |
February 26, 2003 |
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Dear Friends,
It was freezing cold as we scurried from the car to the shelter of the Clovis Community College on Monday. We were there for the second in a series of three forums on the economy that Steve Pearce, Tom Udall and I are doing jointly.
While most economists agree that we are out of the recession, the recovery is not as strong as any of us would like. And as long as there are people without hope and without a job, there is still work to do.
 There have been several proposals put forward in the last two months on more legislation to get the economy rolling. The most prominent of which was set forward by the President.
In Clovis, we had six members of the community who made presentations and then we heard comments from the audience. To me, the most consistent theme was the importance of small business. That’s were the jobs really come from.
In the last decade, 8 of every 10 new jobs were generated by small business. And, for small business, being able to expense equipment or reducing the costs of complying with federal regulations are critically important.
In one of my previous lives, after I left the Air Force and before I joined state government, I started my own business. Like most folks, I started upstairs in our house and then, when I hired my first employee, we got space in a “real” office building. It was tough to figure out all of the rules for taxes, withholdings, business licenses, gross receipts and everything. One year, we bought new computers for the whole office. It bugged me that, as far as the tax people were concerned, we hadn’t really spent that money all that year. We had to depreciate it over several years and pay taxes on money we really didn’t have in the checking account.
Government cannot create wealth. But government creates the conditions for businesses to grow and create jobs. On a cold Monday in Clovis, we got some thoughtful reminders of that fact.
Wish you were here,
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