The Chamber previously hosted Tim Ryan earlier this month.
Republican candidate J.D. Vance spent the morning talking about a few issues he saw as the most pressing for Dayton. He expressed concern about inflation, energy prices and independence, and taxes and regulatory practice.
“We need federal legislators to do a better job by the people of Dayton. That’s exactly what I promise to do in the Senate,” Vance said.
Vance described inflation as a “prosperity destroyer” taking money away from the average American and making it more difficult for businesses.
“If you’re a middle class person, it certainly feels like a tax increase very directly to you. And I think it makes the entire business environment very, very unstable and very unpredictable,” Vance said on Monday.
Vance said that he believed the U.S. went too far too quickly in trying to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic. Instead of trying to build out of the pandemic and get people back to work, Vance said a lot of federal money was spent “paying people not to work,” which added “fuel to the fire of an economy that was already starting to face some inflationary issues.”
Vance also focused on energy prices and energy independence. He said when the Biden administration canceled the Keystone XL oil pipeline and other oil pipelines, he “destroyed an energy independence that [had] been built up over the previous administration.”
While he acknowledges that companies should want to keep the air and water clean, Vance worried that by shutting down these pipelines the U.S. would eventually become more reliant upon countries like Russia and Saudi Arabia for oil that keeps increasing in price.
“Energy independence is not just important for our own economic health. It’s a totally necessary part of maintaining strategic advantages over some of these rivals,” Vance said.
On taxes and regulatory policies, Vance said he was concerned about higher collection and higher enforcement from the IRS. He was worried about how this could impact small businesses and the average American.
“The problem is that when you have a system that’s very complex and it’s more dependent on bureaucratic enforcement than clear legal rules, you create a lot of room for people to face some pretty unpredictable regulatory [environments], some pretty unpredictable IRS enforcement actions,” he said.
Vance also talked about the need to get capital flowing to businesses that have good ideas, not ones that are politically popular at the time.
“We want to get back to an economy where people invest based on whether they think they can build a good product that customers will want, not based on whether they think they’re going to be on the good end of regulatory action or whether they’re going to be doing something that’s politically popular,” he said.
While Vance didn’t speak about specific policy change, he did express the desire to have the U.S. become energy independent by allowing new oil pipelines to be built.
WYSO covered Tim Ryan when he spoke to the Chamber on Oct. 19. Ryan spoke about the importance of creating and retaining good jobs in Dayton so that workers can make their community more prosperous.
He encouraged the Chamber to focus on fostering the opportunities in Dayton – Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, the new Intel chip plant, the upcoming Honda electric vehicle plant – so that jobs can be created and retained.
The forum on Monday was hosted at the CareSource Pamela Morris Center.
