Ehrlich Hosts Small Business Roundtable on Tax Day

Candidate & entrepreneurs discuss need to lower tax burden and create jobs

Annapolis - On the day when millions of Marylanders file their taxes, candidate for Governor Bob Ehrlich met with small business owners to discuss how lowering the tax burden in Maryland will help them grow and create jobs. Ehrlich also reiterated his promise to roll back the 20% increase in the State sales tax that the O’Malley Administration imposed in 2007.

Bob Ehrlich believes small businesses are the most important source of job creation in our economy. He sought the advice and experience of about a dozen Maryland business owners during a meeting Thursday at the Rockfish Bar & Grill in Annapolis. These business leaders expressed confidence that reducing taxes, reforming unemployment insurance, and cutting bureaucratic red tape will strengthen the economy and help small businesses grow.

“I believe it is entrepreneurs like you who generate jobs, opportunity, and economic growth in Maryland,” Ehrlich told the assembled entrepreneurs, and added “It is more than time to get government off the backs of the men and women who can lead our state back to high employment. I believe government should treat entrepreneurs as a source of new jobs – not a source of new tax revenue.”

Comments from the roundtable participants focused mostly on lowering the tax burden in Maryland, the need to better market Maryland businesses, and the debilitating impact of the State’s decision to expand unemployment insurance benefits to part-time workers.

Ehrlich pledged that the advice offered by the roundtable participants would help guide his economic recovery agenda if he is elected in November and invited each participant to be an informal economic advisor to his campaign.

Background: More than 3,000 small businesses in Maryland closed their doors last year alone. Approximately 230,000 Marylanders are currently looking for work and are unable to find it. The unemployment rate in Maryland has more than doubled since 2006. CNBC ranks Maryland 42nd out of 50 states in terms of the cost of doing business.