Issue Position: Jobs and the Economy

Issue Position

We are fortunate that Utah has seen some increase in the economy, but southern Utah continues to lag behind, primarily because construction is still way down. I also know from personal experience and the experience I have had on the Cedar City Council and Economic Development Board, that most of our job growth comes from small companies expanding. For the most part, we don't get big companies coming to our area. We win a few of those but not many. More of the growth comes from small businesses like mine. When we bought our first drug store in 1996 we had 8 employees and 5 of them were my family. We now have 2 pharmacies and drug stores, 2 retail stores, and 50 employees. If we had 10 businesses that had the same track record as ours then we would have the equivalent of a large company. We have to make sure that our tax and regulation structure is conducive to small business growth. We also have to position our local economic development boards in a position to benefit from the state resources, i.e. GOED and USTAR.

Source