Aligning Taxes with Economic Growth

Please join the Dakota County Regional Chamber and the Center of the American Experience for a seminar titled "Aligning Taxes with Economic Growth". The event will be on Thursday, September 18, 2014 from 7:30 a.m.- 9:00 a.m at the Hilton Garden Inn in Eagan.

High quality government services depend on an adequate amount of tax revenue for funding. But how Minnesota raises that tax revenue greatly impacts incentives to work and to invest in this state. Minnesota needs a taxation model that reflects today's economic realities and positions Minnesota for growth.

At this event, Center of the American Experiment will release the seventh chapter of The Minnesota Policy Blueprint: Prescription for Prosperity, a package of innovative policy recommendations that emphasize personal initiative, free enterprise and a limited, frugal government. The Minnesota Policy Blueprint, in its entirety, will be released later this fall. A Q&A portion will follow the presentation.

The speaker for this event will be John Spry. John A. Spry is an associate professor in the Finance Department. He earned his B.S. in economics at Ohio State University, and his M.A. and Ph.D. in economics at the University of Rochester. He has been a member of the faculty at Rutgers University and was a visiting professor at Brandeis University and Ball State University. He has authored several publications in scholarly journals, has made frequent conference presentations and has served as a reviewer for academic journals. His current areas of research are state and local public finance, the economics of state lotteries, the effects of tax rates on tax bases and applied non-parametric econometrics. His work as a consultant includes a report on the economics and taxation of riverboat casinos for the Indiana Legislature and a report on tax expenditures and the budget process for the Minnesota Department of Revenue. He was a member of the Minnesota Governor's 21st Century Tax Reform Commission.