Business owners speak up with campaign donations

Springfield business owners Jack Stack and Steven Stepp agree that creating an environment where the private sector can grow and businesses can create new jobs is the paramount business issue in the Nov. 6 presidential election. They just disagree about the best candidate to make that happen.

Stack, president and CEO of SRC Holdings Corp., said former Massachusetts governor and Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has done a better job of bringing new ideas forward and explaining how private sector growth can occur. Stack has contributed $5,000 to the Romney campaign directly and another $15,000 to a political action committee that supports the presidential hopeful.

“The more people we can get working, the more social overhead we can absorb,” said Stack, who identified himself as a pro-business voter, regardless of party. “We have to continually clarify this: When we create jobs, when we get people working, when people are out there paying payroll taxes and paying income taxes, they are creating revenue. With people working, they become less dependent on government.”

Stepp, co-owner of National Audio Co., said he and his wife, Peggy, have contributed $5,000 to President Barack Obama’s campaign to support the Democratic Party’s work to create broad prosperity among citizens, which drives the economy, Steven Stepp said.

“I’ve been in business 43 years, and I have noted that my business has always done better under Democratic administrations,” he said. “If you look back to the 1990s, that was a tremendous time of expansion and prosperity. Generally, we have had fuller employment, more widespread prosperity throughout the economy in those years.

“I’m interested in an economy where my company prospers because other companies are prospering, too,” said Stepp, whose business produces audio cassettes, CDs and DVDs, as well as video equipment and their packaging.

Stepp said he believes deregulation during the George W. Bush years led to the financial collapse in 2008, and he’s worried a similar collapse could happen in a few years if Romney is elected.

However, Stack said federal regulatory agencies, such as the Environmental Protection Agency, are too autonomous. For example, Stack said the EPA’s regulatory power over emissions can hamper small business and job growth.

“I really believe in breathing clean air but not in going broke while we do it,” said Stack, whose SRC Holdings comprises 23 companies specialize in remanufacturing components for the agricultural, industrial, construction and automotive markets.

Pointing to the mounting federal deficit – now roughly $16 trillion – Stack said the president has to be willing to rein in social programs until more jobs are created. He said he thinks Romney is doing a better job of explaining how to address the problems the country faces.

“I think he’s becoming more articulate in terms of defining spending, defining revenues. I really believe that a great leader is a great teacher and spends the time to analyze and communicate difficult topics, which is what we really need right now,” Stack said.

While the nation’s debt is a concern for Stepp, he feels that deficit spending was important through the last four years in order to prevent a further economic slide.

“Debt is bad. The other thing that is worse is a depression,” Stepp said. “You can’t save your way out of a recession. You have to have money in circulation.”

Brian Calfano, associate professor of political science at Missouri State University and director of the school’s poll research center, said through the debates and political advertising, both Romney and Obama have focused their efforts on what they would do to improve the economy. Because the economy has been slow to recover, Calfano said he considers Romney has the political high ground.

“Romney has the advantage of simply not being the one in power,” Calfano said. “With Barack Obama saying that he has created 5 million jobs, he obviously is aware that there hasn’t been much in the last four years for Obama administration economists to be very happy about. They were predicting a much more robust recovery and lower unemployment, and they’ve had to back off from that.”

Economists had projected Obama’s $800 billion stimulus package in 2009 would move the U.S. unemployment rate to 5.6 percent by July. The national unemployment rate was 7.8 percent in September, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Calfano said, however, that it’s a misconception that either candidate could directly impact the free-market system, which is subject to all sorts of influences in an increasingly global economy.

“It is tough because they need to sound reassuring; they need to sound like they have a plan. With Romney saying that he’s going to create 12 million jobs in the next four years, that is really a fantasy,” Calfano said, adding that it also would be a weighty political feat for Romney to get broad support for eliminating specific tax deductions, if elected.

“If 12 million jobs are created or 20 million jobs are created, to say that Romney’s plan had a direct effect on the outcome is nonsense. It’s nonsense when Republicans claim that Ronald Reagan created those jobs, and it is nonsense when Democrats claim that Bill Clinton created those jobs.”[[In-content Ad]]