23 October 2022: What policies does the business community need to succeed?

 What public policies do businesses need to be successful? This essay is based on my experience as a business owner for 40+ years in computers / IT, medicine, law and medical publishing.

First, successful businesses need stability to plan for the future. In general, democracy breeds stability and enacting policies that strengthen democratic values is good for business. However, supporting election deniers promotes instability (https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/republicans-trump-election-fraud/,      https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/10/06/elections-deniers-midterm-elections-2022/). If an election official proclaims a candidate the victor who did not get the most votes, we can predict that widespread violence and societal mayhem are more likely to occur.

Instability is also promoted by threatening to default on the national debt (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/18/mccarthy-gop-medicare-social-security/), which could trigger a recession (https://www.thebalancemoney.com/u-s-debt-default-3306295#:~:text=In%20modern%20history%2C%20the%20U.S.,financial%20markets%20and%20the%20economy,      https://www.forbes.com/sites/rhettbuttle/2021/10/04/defaulting-on-the-national-debt-ceiling-would-be-catastrophic-for-small-businesses/?sh=129c344e3bf2).
The climate crisis is another source of profound instability which needs to be addressed, not treated as a "hoax".

Second, successful businesses need educated and healthy employees. This means the business community should support strong public K-12 schools, public colleges and universities, public health programs and medical programs such as the Affordable Care Act.

Third, successful businesses rely on physical infrastructure, as supported in the recently passed infrastructure bill that funds roads, bridges, mass transit, rail, airports, ports, waterways, broadband infrastructure, the electric grid, water systems and a network of plug-in electric vehicle chargers
(https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/05/politics/house-votes-infrastructure-build-back-better), all of which are good for business.

Fourth, businesses are more successful with a diverse workforce, which includes women, minorities, LGTBQ people and non-Christians (https://www.forbes.com/sites/biancamillercole/2020/09/15/8-reasons-why-diversity-and-inclusion-are-essential-to-business-success/?sh=53136e4c1824). This means business needs to encourage policies which support people other than white male heterosexual Christians.

Fifth, most businesses need a strong economy to prosper, which historically means that government should support programs that benefit the middle and lower class, such as the American Rescue Plan (https://equitablegrowth.org/the-american-rescue-plan-helped-u-s-families-amid-the-coronavirus-pandemic-and-provides-a-roadmap-for-policymakers-today/). These "trickle up" policies appear to be more important for economic growth than tax cuts for the wealthy and super wealthy (https://academic.oup.com/ser/article/20/2/539/6500315), which cause severe income inequality and massive deficits.

Sixth, in this era of low unemployment rates and difficulties in finding employees to hire, we need to support reasonable immigration policies to bring in more immigrants to work for us.

Traditionally, business is obsessed with reducing taxes for the wealthy, which benefit the business bottom line in the short term and satisfies the greed of many business executives. Although it is rational to want to minimize expenses, including taxes, many business executives acknowledge that to survive and prosper long term, it is more important for the country and states to have the policies described above, which require adequate business taxes.

What do you think?

@NatPpolitics