Kyle
While he hasn’t declared his candidacy for President of the United States in 2016, we can just about count on the fact that Texas Governor Rick Perry will run for the Republican nomination. It’s just about as sure a thing as Hillary running for the Democratic nomination.
Even though he isn’t officially a candidate Perry has been making the rounds both internationally and nationally, soft campaigning and warming people up to his way of thinking.
The Washington Post reported on Wednesday that Governor Perry was in Bethesda Maryland for meetings with local political and business officials. The Governor’s meetings were taking place at Morton’s steak house a popular restaurant in the Maryland suburb of Washington DC.
It was there that the Startup Maryland bus, loaded with entrepreneurs and startup founders pitching their companies across the state, came face to face with the Republican Governor.
“If you want to live in a state where you have high taxes and a relatively burdensome regulatory climate, if you want to live in a state where the litigation is relatively easy to get into, then go live in those states,” Perry had told local website BethesdaNow earlier in the day.
“The messaging from Governor Perry is laser focused on the tax environment,” said Startup Maryland co-chair Michael Binko told the Washington Post. “If businesses are only looking at the tax environment for where they should go to succeed, we think that’s shortsighted as entrepreneurs and probably a recipe for disaster.”
Binko is not alone. The issues of lower tax rates and lower cost of living are always popping up in the Silicon Valley vs “everywhere else” startup debate, with PandoDaily’s Sarah Lacy saying “But there’s a reason I never talk up taxes or cost of living as reasons other startup ecosystems will take off: Because none of the people who really matter give a shit about these things.” in this article addressing tax breaks, rates and cost of living for startups outside the valley.
While we’re not going to debate politics on the pages of nibletz.com, the current administration has overseen the passing and rolling out of the JOBS ACT, they’re looking at immigration reform that will make it easier for foreign founders to grow their startups here, and they’ve hosted a slew of startup focused events in conjunction with Startup America.
With the weight of turning the economy around falling on developing new businesses startups will be a hot issue in the 2016 campaign.
As for Maryland’s startup bus, this is the second year for the Startup Maryland bus which stops at various cities across the state and invites entrepreneurs and startup founders onto the bus to record video pitches. The pitches are voted on at the end of the bus tour. The bus tour started in Ocean City Maryland on September 9th and runs through September 27th.
