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Lower Taxes Do More For Growth

Kurt Johnson

Des Moines Register

July 1, 2006

[Note: This material is copyright by the Des Moines Register, and is reproduced here as a matter of "fair use" for non-commercial, educational purposes only. Any other use may require the prior approval of the Des Moines Register.]


If I understand your June 20 article, “Incentives Make State 'Very Competitive’,” the Iowa Department of Economic Development issued a report giving itself high praise for the “amazing” number of projects, and the great success of its money-granting economic-development efforts.

I wonder if its opinion of its work might be a little biased. I look forward to a report by the state auditor at some point.

The thing we don’t see, and can never see, is how many of those jobs would have been created anyway, and how many other jobs were not created because of the money taxed away from other Iowans in order to create these economic-incentive funds.

Lowering taxes and regulations are the best things that Iowa can do to foster economic growth. It is wrong and arrogant on the part of bureaucrats and politicians who think that they can determine better than private markets which businesses should be given funding.

Kurt Johnson
Urbandale