Lori Grivna in her own words

Lori Grivna now has her campaign site up and running. I support Lori in her quest to represent HD 50B in the state legislature. Lori would bring common sense to St. Paul and she would be a massive improvement over the pie-eyed incumbent, Kate Knuth.

I would encourage you to visit Lori's site to find out more about her candidacy, but I wanted to call out something that she understands much better than her opponent.

Here is Lori on taxes, the economy and jobs:

I will work to reduce the tax burden on Minnesotans and remove obstacles for the many businesses in our district to succeed.

Individual, corporate, and capital gains tax rates must be reduced in order to grow our economy.

1. Minnesota has among the highest corporate and individual income tax rates. Fortune Small Business Magazine cites high state and local taxes as an issue for business expansion in our Minnesota cities. Penalizing hard work, business and prosperity-the legislature's answer to fairness and equality-are never acceptable ways to impose tax structures.

2. The reality is businesses pass the tax burden on to employees and customers. After all, corporations are made up of average people who work and are shareholders investing in their retirement. Raising the corporate tax or mandating corporate spending is the quickest way to stifle job growth. I have met with corporate employees in our district that disclose they've moved portions of their business overseas in order to grow, stay competitive, or just survive. Countries like Ireland can offer less than one half of the tax burden that Minnesota places on business. Current tax policy has lost Minnesota jobs not only overseas, but to our neighboring states as well.

3. The majority of Minnesotans are perplexed that the legislature passed one of the largest tax increases in these struggling economic times. Don't believe the legislature's claim that it was done to create jobs. It is the private sector that creates jobs, not the government. Free markets maximize the talents and innovations of individuals to produce goods and services. They are the agent of change.

4. Only the private sector can make the economic pie bigger for all to share, every time the government takes more of the people's money, this pie shrinks.

5. The legislature wants to penalize hard workers, yet creates and expands programs that promote the cycle of poverty and government reliance. Instead, government should provide safety net programs to temporarily help citizens with the tools they need to encourage self reliance.

6. Property tax should not be based on the unrealized value of property that arbitrarily grows by double digits each year. This is like taxing potential income instead of actual income.

This is spot-on. I would especially call your attention to point #3. If you doubt that our local business climate suffers from the levels of taxation, you could ask this guy about it. He's on the radio pretty much every day explaining it and essentially gloating about how he and his friends are coming to take more business away from Minnesota. Somehow, I don't think Kate Knuth's cap and trade schemes are going to help change that.

Cross-posted at True North