I’ve spent the better part of four decades forging partnerships between small businesses and local and state government officials.
It is easy to understand why small businesses may have a bit of chip on the shoulder and I admire what they do for this country. But in my opinion one of the worst things that has happened to our country in recent times is the wholesale, kneejerk demonization of taxes and government.
The free market is great but it would still be in the dark ages without infrastructure and great communities and neighborhoods. Cutting the oxygen that provides those things is ludicrous and suicidal.
Kelly Miller, a friend and colleague from Alaska days who heads the destination marketing organization in Asheville NC gave me the following quote that illustrates why business and government are so interdependent:
If you build a place people want to visit, you build a place where people want to live.
If you build a place where people want to live, you’ll build a place where people want to work.
If you build a place where people want to work, you’ll build a place where business needs to be.
And if you build a place where business has to be, you’ll build a place where people have to visit.
-- Maura Gast
2 comments:
Taxes for infrastructure, public safety, defense, and transportation systems are fine. It's the taxes for the 'everything else' that most Americans don't want. Look what has just happened with healthcare!
Mark Thomas
President
WEICHERT, REALTORS - Mark Thomas Properties
Durham, NC
919-730-7067
Hello, my friend - looks as though your new life is treating you well, and glad to see you are enjoying it. I am actually the "unknown author" of that quote. It came out of many late night reading and review sessions of drafts of the DMAI Future Study, influenced in my brain by lots of Richard Florida reading.
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