What Works on the Small, Works on the Large

Recently my father-in-law visited from Minnesota and I really enjoy his company. We both love golf, classic rock, and my family, but when it comes to politics, we tend to have to keep our conversations short.

While we were both golfing we began discussing his future retirement, at that time he noted that he planned on moving to South Dakota. I knew he was from there originally, but I also knew he loved his adopted home. So I asked him why he was leaving and he said, "that's easy, South Dakota has a much better tax situation for retirees than virtually any state in the country." I cannot begin to state the many times he had told me how unpatriotic businesses were to leave the country because of tax and other laws.

With that I asked him, "so here you are, the average American, who is smart enough to change where you live to protect your wife and you from higher taxes, but you don't expect businesses to do the same thing with often large numbers of employees and even greater tax implications?" It is very rare to get him to get quiet once we gets started (and he would say the same about me), but he had that knowing look on his face that this conversation was over.

The United States has the second highest corporate tax rates of any industrialized country in the world and we are working hard to try to become number in this dubious area. Businesses are about efficiency, profit, and looking out for the interest of its stockholders. Taxes, like regulations and licensure laws, are just the fixed costs of doing business. If the costs get too high, businesses have no choice but to move to better places for commerce. It isn't personal, it is just business.

Most of the things that work or don't work on a micro level, translate the same on the macro. Because in both cases they include human nature and humans tend to respond to incentives (and disincentives) the same way. If the government could eliminate their fantasy and replace it with reality, all of our lives would be so much better.

Kevin Price is Host of the Price of Business, the longest running show on CNN 650 (M-F at 11 am), AOL Radio, and CBS Radio. Eric Bolling of Fox News and Fox Business says that Price’s Blog “is very influential and moves the blogosphere.” Steve Moore of the Wall Street Journal calls Price the “best business talk show host in the country.” Find out why and visit his blog at www.BizPlusBlog.com and his show site at www.PriceofBusiness.com.