The corporate chief executives of Job Creators Network said Friday the November national jobs report showing another month of modest job growth is not sufficient for creating a strong economy and called for action in the new Congress.
One challenge holding back the next great economic boom: The worst business taxes in the developed world, and the Job Creators Network CEOs want Washington to work together to fix the problem in 2015.
“Today’s jobs report shows no more jobs created than what America needs to keep our head above water,” said Laura Kozelouzek, CEO of Quest Workspaces and a member of the Job Creators Network. “After a recession, the economy is eventually supposed to kick into gear and roar ahead. But six years out from 2008, this recovery feels more like purgatory.”
This morning’s jobs report showed no more jobs were created in November, and an unemployment rate unchanged at 5.8 percent. Florida’s October unemployment rate was 6 percent.
“America’s corporate tax rate is higher than all of our big trading partners and our tax code is too complicated to understand without armies of lawyers and accountants,” said Kozelouzek. “That’s a big reason our economy isn’t booming. Addressing this problem should be Job One in Washington.”
The nominal corporate tax rate in the United States, combining federal, state and local rates, is nearly 40 percent, according to a recent Washington Post report. All 33 other large industrial economies have a lighter business tax burden. The Canadian levy is estimated at just over 26 percent.
“If you have to pay the highest tax rate in the world to fill a factory with American workers, yet doing the same with Canadians will cost much less, then it’s an obvious business decision,” Kozelouzek said.
Kozelouzek also noted it shouldn’t be too much to expect a Democratic president and Republican Congress to produce major bipartisan reform to create jobs. “NAFTA was one of the great tax cuts in American history, followed by one of our strongest economic booms. It lowered the cost of selling American goods to the world and it happened because of the support of a Democratic president and the votes of Republicans in Congress,” she said.
Job Creators Network is the voice of real job creators. Its members talk about paychecks, not politics, helping the public and policymakers understand how to create jobs. For more information, visit www.JobCreatorsNetwork.com.
