Opinion: Lone Star State outranks North Star State in business categories that count
Despite being home to more than 3 million small businesses and the eighth largest economy in the world, a recent CNBC study has alleged that Texas is not one of the top five states to do business in America, ranking it behind Minnesota in a business-friendly climate.
Our workforce, economy, and cost of doing business all outrank Minnesota. These are foundational to the day-to-day necessities of running a business. But because we 'missed the mark’ in a handful of arguably subjective categories, we came in sixth place nationally.
You’d have to be more than a few sandwiches shy of a picnic to think the Lone Star State is second to the North Star State. Take, for example, our state legislature’s prioritization of small businesses this session. Among other pro-free market reforms, Texas lawmakers cut property taxes and eased the regulatory burden, both of which will ensure small business owners can keep their doors open and create new jobs for hardworking Texans.
Minnesota took the exact opposite approach. For starters, lawmakers raised taxes and fees on business owners big and small, despite having an $18 billion budget surplus. At a time when inflation continues to put enormous pressure on prices and workers remain in short supply, do higher taxes and more fees sound like a recipe for business success to you?
Here in Texas, lawmakers gave more than half of our state’s budget surplus back to the taxpayers. The $18 billion property tax cut helps residents and business owners alike, slashing local ISD taxes and providing targeted relief to small businesses.
In addition to higher taxes, nearly every mom-and-pop shop in Minnesota will be subjected to new employment mandates. Despite bipartisan opposition and deep concern from the business community, Minnesota has enacted a paid leave mandate that includes a $1.5 billion per year payroll tax hike on small business owners and workers.
While big box retailers will be able to shoulder the mandate, it’ll be near impossible for small business owners to comply. Gone will be the flexible arrangements between an employer and their employees. And with the mandate’s complex regulations and severe penalties, small businesses will be left with a compliance headache.
In the past few years, a complex patchwork of regulations has crept up, as a handful of Texas cities have stepped outside their traditional jurisdiction and attempted to regulate private employment practices.
Gov. Greg Abbott, working hand in hand with the 88th Legislature, signed into law a bipartisan bill that makes clear that in Texas, commerce is regulated at the state and federal levels, not at the city and county levels. This landmark bill provides greater certainty in the regulatory landscape of our state and makes it easier for small business owners to comply with regulations while growing their operations, creating new jobs, and investing in their communities.
There’s a reason Texas has led the nation in population growth for the past 17 years in a row. Though there’s a wide swath of political persuasions, our lawmakers listen to job creators, because they know that Main Street businesses are deeply tied to the identity and well-being of a community.
Our recipe of common sense and free market principles has allowed hardworking families from all walks of life to flourish. The facts bear this out. We’re America’s economic engine, leading the nation in jobs created in the past year. Nearly 300 new corporate headquarters have decided to call Texas home since 2015.
While some so-called ‘experts’ might publish studies questioning our state’s business climate, job creators know there’s no better place to set up shop. I’ll take Texas’s free market over Minnesota’s heavy-handed approach any day of the week and twice on Sundays.
Annie Spilman is the Texas state director for the National Federation of Independent Business.
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Opinion: Texas business climate is stronger than CNBC study says
