FORT WAYNE – Keith Busse can’t pinpoint one problem with the economy. His list consists of 10 things.
The chairman of Steel Dynamics Inc. and Tower Bancorp was the featured speaker Tuesday at the annual banquet for the Service Corps of Retired Executives.
More than 50 SCORE volunteers and guests attended the luncheon at the Fort Wayne Country Club.
Bill Causey, chairman of the local chapter, said the non-profit’s efforts are an important part of the struggling recovery.
“Small business is what really drives the economy and sustains it,” he said.
Busse, who recounted the founding of Steel Dynamics with two former Nucor Corp. co-workers, said the steel maker is doing as well as any in the industry.
“We’re moving, we’re growing,” he said. “We’ve got a new mill designed, waiting on a better economy.”
Busse later defined a “better economy” as one with a sustained 3 percent – or higher – growth in the gross domestic product.
But several factors make it tougher for everyone to do business, he said. They include:
•China’s currency manipulation that ties the value of the yuan to the U.S. dollar
•U.S. energy policy, which could put people back to work if more emphasis were put on nuclear and solar power
•Out-of-control spending by the federal government, including extended unemployment benefits
•Crushing national debt
•Tax policy that needs a complete overhaul, including a reduction in the corporate tax rate of 38 percent
•Crushing health care costs
•Regulatory policy that ends up sending jobs and pollution to China
•Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare programs that can stay solvent only if the population increases
•Growing national security threats, which have prompted the government to spend trillions fighting wars
•The shaky U.S. financial system
“The government needs to get out of our lives,” Busse, a registered Republican, said in summary. “I think we’re in for a tough 2012.”
The entrepreneur, who favors term limits, said he’d like to see more statesmen in elected office and fewer politicians.
