My Day on Capitol Hill

As a businessperson, I like to see decision-making for tax spending undergo similar diligence and required returns as done by businesses. Similar to business spending, taxes are the income and we spend it on investments and overheads. For example, I consider expenditure in high-technology research and education as an investment because it would pay something in return and increase the tax revenue. On the other hand spending on military and health care are overheads, there is no ROI (return on investment).

As a business, investments are made based on return on investment. I am sure our economists can provide data on return on investment on research and education to justify and to select the best investment options for the US government. Similar to a business, since overheads to not provide a return on investment, they are typically justified by benchmarking other similar businesses. For example, a manufacturing company would spend 20 percent on employee benefits and 15 percent on office expenses by benchmarking their competitors.

Clearly this is a complex issue, but I believe that we must protect entrepreneurs that are employers and not increase taxes by providing employer credits. I am proposing that after we cut down our military spending and healthcare spending by benchmarking against other nations, we increase the taxes on the rich except for the people that are employing Americans. Bottom line is, if you are not employing someone and still will be earning lot of money, you will pay higher taxes.

Today, along with fellow members of the Minnesota Chapter of the Campaign to Fix the Debt, I told a number of Members of Congress from Minnesota just this. Tomorrow, I will report on how it went. Stay tuned.