Spotlight on the 114th Congress:
Rep. Mike Kelly (R-03-PA)
Q
Through your experience
operating small businesses
and franchises, what certain skills
or perspectives do you apply as a
public official?
A
There are unintended consequences that come about because
people who have never done what
we do in small businesses are developing policy and setting a precedent.
I mean this sincerely: If we don’t get
more people from the private sector
serving in elected offices, we are going
to continue to see this type of a trend.
You can’t have professional politicians making policy decisions based
on getting re-elected and not how
to keep small businesses and people
alive through taxes and regulations. It’s
become very, very troublesome.
Q
A
Q
What do you see as the current biggest threat
to small-business owners?
The election of Hillary Clinton.
How have your roles on the House Committee on
Ways and Means and subcommittees for tax and
trade influenced your opinion(s) on the current threats to
small business?
A
2016 Issue 2 |
THE
SCORE
18
My entire life is built on associations with people who
are small-business people, who band together for best
practices to find out how we can operate our businesses more
effectively and more efficiently, and we rely on each other
and each other’s experience to come up with those types of
policies. Being on Ways and Means allows me to be able to
weigh in on something that somebody proposes and say,
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa! Wait a minute. That doesn’t work
in the private sector,” and they’ll say,“Well, yeah, but this is
something we have to do.” I said,“If you’re really looking to
shore up America’s finances, then it’s not going to be through
a political entity. It’s going to come from the private sector.
We’re the people that provide all
the capital that we need to run this
wonderful, wonderful country of
ours.”
My perspective, my experience,
my near-death experiences and
getting through very difficult times
lead me to have a different perspective in understanding that there are
grave consequences of policies that
are put into place without a deep
look at the people they are affecting.
Q
In what ways are you
seeking feedback from
small businesses in Pennsylvania
and then using that information
in Washington, D.C.?
A
The way we always do things.
First of all, in my business, I
always relied on the people, the
associates that I worked with. We were delivering to the
people that kept us alive – that was our owner base. I look at
the same thing here in Washington. I try to be as accessible as
possible and as understanding as possible.
I will tell you, I’ve actually gone through the same experiences. Hearing what these people have to say and understanding that I’ve gone through things that are very similar
and then arriving together at a solution to fix a problem. We
shouldn’t be putting roadblocks in the way of people being
successful. We should be helping them to get there by looking
carefully at tax regulations and business regulations that really
put a heavy load and a boot on the throat of our job creators
and that’s our small-business people. Most jobs are created in
the small-business world, which is where I come from, so it’s
that listening and having been there, having walked that walk,
not just talking the talk.
I rely on my friends and associates to do the same t