Here & Now

Frederica Freyberg:

Before we learn about the Tammy Baldwin jobs plan, a quick reminder to mark your calendars for Thursday, October 18. That’s when Tommy Thompson and Tammy Baldwin will debate live. The one-hour debate originates from Wausau and becomes at 7:00. Wisconsin Public Television and Radio are cosponsors of the debate, together with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Today’s TMJ4 and the Wisconsin Institute for Public Policy and Service. Now, to the Baldwin jobs agenda. For that we turn to a Manitou County manufacture of farm equipment. John Miller is the president of the Miller-St. Nazianz, Incorporated. He joins us from Milwaukee and thanks very much for doing so.

John Miller:

Thanks for having me.

Frederica Freyberg:

So running a successful manufacturing company that does a lot of its business in exporting of the equipment you build, what’s not to like about what Tommy Thompson calls border adjusting, his proposal so you wouldn’t have to pay export taxes to the US government?

John Miller:

I’m not sure what the former secretary is talking about. We do quite a bit of exporting. In fact, 50% of our total sales occur outside the United States. Now, while it’s true that some of the importers of our equipment in countries like Russia and Kazakhstan, do have to pay an import duty, many countries don’t, such as Australia. But that’s on the landed countryside. As an American company we don’t pay any tax to export our equipment. If we did, we wouldn’t be exporting 50% of our sales outside the United States.

Frederica Freyberg:

All right, well, we’ll have to ask Tommy Thompson about that when we see him at that debate. Now, what about whether or not you could do better under the Republican tax proposals that include lowering the corporate tax rate?

John Miller:

First of all, no corporation actually pays a 35% corporate tax rate. I use GE as an example. They don’t pay any federal income tax and they’re a billion dollar corporation. Instead of focusing on cutting corporate tax rates, I think our legislators should focus on making key investments that will help us grow the middle class, which will help us grow the economy. Congressman Baldwin has a track record of supporting investments in innovation and R & D and education, specifically education, which is very important to companies like myself, which depend on technical college graduates. So her support of doubling Pell grants is very important to us. And she’s also been very good at getting R & D and research dollars into the UW system.

Frederica Freyberg:

And so the idea that the corporate tax rate might be lowered ,or that the tax rate for high-income earners might be lowered, would not in your mind, kind of, boost the economy and make you hire more people?

John Miller:

I make– I hire people when I have demand, as all companies do. And the way to create demand is to have a middle class that’s strong and cutting taxes for the top 1% is not going to solve our problems. The 99% are the people who need to have tax relief so that they can put their money back into the economy.

Frederica Freyberg:

Well, I was going to ask you about demand, because isn’t demand generated by spending, and isn’t spending– doesn’t that result when more people have more money, and won’t they have more money if their taxes are lower?

John Miller:

But I– my spending as a business owner is more discretionary than somebody else who makes a lower wage, who has to spend nearly all of their income in order to get by. That is the kind of spending we need. We need to have middle class tax relief and a fair playing field.

Frederica Freyberg:

What about government regulation? Are you overburdened by the regulation that our government puts on you as a manufacturer?

John Miller:

Absolutely not. I don’t have any opposition to abiding by clean air and clean water regulations. There’s no reason why I should oppose those things. It would benefit my employees. In fact, one of the things that Congresswoman Baldwin should tout is her opposition to repealing Glass-Steagall, which got us into the financial mess that we had. This impacted me the most because our banking system was in dire straits because of decisions made on Wall Street, which would have impacted me on Main Street.

Frederica Freyberg:

I need to leave it there. John Miller, thank you very much for joining us.

John Miller:

Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.