A CEO on jobs and tax cuts

By Gary Pearce, Talking About Politics, July 29, 2013.

A successful businessman – and Democrat – offers the view below on the tax-cut bill passed by the legislature and signed by Governor McCrory. The writer is Reid Overcash, who has been a business owner and CEO for four different companies.

“There is no short-term successful strategy to creating jobs by reducing taxes. No one hires new employees based on a tax cut. As a CEO over the past 30 years, I can tell you there is only one reason to hire new positions and that is that demand for your product or service exceeds the capability of the current staff to provide it. In other words, you hire because you have to, not because your taxes are cut. To be fair, it does put more money into the stockholders’ pockets that they might, in turn, spend for a new car or a vacation home. But they will not hire new staff if the current staff can fill all the orders.

“Jobs are jobs, regardless if they are in the public sector or private sector. It makes no sense to eliminate 30-40,000 public jobs thinking that will reduce unemployment. (Republican leaders) are mostly hurting the rural areas that can’t afford to make up the difference. They are hurting their own supporters. I wonder how long it will take for them to realize their fate.”