Tax repeal would ease pain

During the 1992 presidential campaign, Bill Clinton famously intoned, “I feel your pain,” reassuring voters he understood what they were going through. Since then, similar statements of empathy have become a staple for politicians but too often they are just hollow words.

Most elected officials have no idea what it’s like to risk everything you have or to struggle to meet payroll for your employees and their families as waves of new taxes and regulations threaten to drown you and your business.

One politician who got that firsthand experience was former U.S. Senator and presidential candidate George McGovern (D).

In a 1992 Wall Street Journal (WSJ) column, “A Politician’s Dream is a Businessman’s Nightmare,” McGovern described his experience running a Connecticut hotel and conference center. He ultimately went bankrupt, a failure he attributed in large part to local, state and federal regulations that were passed with good intentions, but no understanding of how they burdened small business owners.

McGovern didn’t dwell on taxes, but today, especially in Washington, he would be alarmed our growing tax burden on private sector employers. In 1992, Washington did not have a state income tax and, along with abundant lower cost electricity, was one of the top 10 most favorable states to invest in.

Today, Washington is one of the least attractive states for business.

Deeply affected by his failure, McGovern became an advocate for family-owned businesses saying: “I wish that during the years I was in public office, I had had this firsthand experience about the difficulties businesspeople face every day.”

While politicians often tout their support for small business, they are the least understood and most overlooked political constituency, McGovern wrote.

These folks — particularly the owners of family businesses — put their life savings on the line 12 to 16 hours a day, scrambling to make ends meet. They don’t have time to campaign for political candidates or lobby elected officials, yet too often they feel the brunt of tax and fee increases and cumbersome regulations.

Family-owned businesses are America’s economic backbone.

According to Family Enterprise USA (FEUSA) 2024 data, America’s 32 million family businesses are our largest private employer accounting for 83.3 million jobs. They contribute $7.7 trillion annually to U.S. gross domestic product.

In Washington (2024), a third of businesses are small (fewer than 500 employees) and family owned. FEUSA found more than 30 percent of all family-owned businesses survive in the second generation but only 12 percent will still be viable in the third generation.

Today, businesses which are struggling to survive as the cumulative costs of state and local taxes, regulations, permitting and fees become excessive, are forcing businesses to leave Washington.

For example, it is clear in border communities such as Spokane, Pullman and Clarkston that Coeur d’ Alene, Moscow and Lewiston become better options to move.

Taxes have consequences. in March 2023 Fisher Investment moved its headquarters from Camas to Dallas after the Washington State Supreme Court ruled that the state’s capital gains tax is constitutional. By June 2024, Fisher had 5,300 Texas employees.

It would help if, to run for office, politicians had to first sweat making a payroll, struggle to deal with complex and costly maze of government regulations, and deal with the uncertainty of business cycles and global competition.

Hopefully, Ferguson and Democrat state legislative leaders will pause and calculate the added pain, they have inflicted on tax paying jobmakers. Rolling the dice are bumping up taxes and fees again (and again) are economy and job killers.

Passing I-645 sends a strong signal to Olympia.

— Don C. Brunell is a business analyst, writer and columnist who lives in Vancouver. He can be contacted at theBrunells@msn.com.