Growth & Justice Blog

A different tone in this year's tax committee hearings, and a clear consensus for more and fairer revenue

I've heard infinite versions of "don't tax me''  or "taxing me or my customers more will destroy my business AND the economy'' in my decades under the dome.   And last week's opposition at a House hearing to ending sales tax exemptions on business services was typical in many respects.   Just because these fears often turn out unfounded _ our economy was performing better, in the 1990s,  when taxes were higher  _ doesn't mean these specific concerns shouldn't be heeded.   

But I don't recall ever hearing as many tax opponents acknowledge, as they made their sincere case against losing tax exemptions on their own business, that our communities do need more revenue for public investment and for dealing with demographic challenges.    Time after time I heard these business owners or their association leaders, who are also citizens,  say that they supported or understood the need for more revenue, just "please, not on me or my customers, this time.''  And when all the opponents got through testifying, alternating one-for-one with those who favored the governor's plan, there were still more testifiers left who favored the reasonable increases in Dayton's plan, and the badly needed investments on the budget side, from early childhood education to transportation to workforce training.   I didn't hear nearly as many angry diatribes against government and taxes in general as I've heard in previous years.

That consensus for more revenue comes through in the Star Tribune's Sunday poll, showing  once again that a majority favor restoring higher income tax rates on the highest income margins, while opinion is evely divided on expanding the sales tax base to more consumer services.   A clear majority opposes ending the exemptions for so-called "business-to-business'' services.

This consensus for "reasonably more'' actually is not new.   Polls show support for revenue sufficiency was strong all through the 12 years of rule by one governor whose slogan was  "give it all back'' and another whose central theme was "no new taxes,'' and  legislative majorities that took the same hard and uncompromising line in 2011-2012.   Especially after budget crises began recurring regularly in 2001 and beyond, polls consistently showed that most Minnesotans thought revenue increases ought to be at least part of the solution for budget shortfalls.  That happened also to be the position of almost all former governors in all three parties through that period.    And in almost every reputable poll I've seen, most Minnesotans think those who have been reaping almost all the benefits of increased productivity in recent years, and who have been paying a smaller percentage of their big increases  in state-local taxes, ought to contribute reasonably more.

 

Dane Smith   

 

 

Border sales tax impacts: Do we believe our lying eyes?

Back in 2007 when Growth & Justice was presenting its Invest for Real Prosperity tax proposals to the legislature, I recall a member waxing nostalgically about his parents hauling the family across the North Dakota border to buy untaxed clothing in Minnesota.

The point of his anecdote was that if Minnesota lowered its sales tax and broadened its tax base—as economists recommend—this lucrative cross-border school clothing traffic would dry up, with terrible consequences for Minnesota's border city retailers.

We're hearing a version of the same tale, now that Governor Dayton's tax reform plan has finally taken the advice of both Growth & Justice and Governor Pawlenty's 2009 tax reform commission to lower the tax rate and extend the sales tax base to a broader range of consumer products and consumer services.

This week, Rep. Pat Garofalo objected on TPT's Almanac: At the Capitol. He reported that a North Dakota Democrat was proposing eliminating the state's tax on clothing as a form of tax relief.  

"Retail businesses in border communities like Moorhead will be destroyed," Garofalo said, attracting blogger Dave Mindeman's skeptical response:

Fact: North Dakota sales tax is currently 5.0%. Fargo, ND which is the booming ND metropolis across the river from Moorhead adds a 2% city tax. So here [are] the facts. Under Dayton's tax proposal, Moorhead (which adds no city tax) would be 5.5%. Fargo would charge 7.0% Clothing may be exempt in the future, but Moorhead will still have clothing under $100 exempt as well.

Judging from comments left on the post and on Twitter, the border-crossing mythology is too well-entrenched to be swept away by simple math.

But let's suppose North Dakota finally drops its state clothing tax just when the gap with Minnesota is closing.

Then what? Will Minnesota border towns really suffer? Were North Dakota retailers in the thriving cities of Fargo and Grand Forks suffering in silence all these years?

As the Minnesota legislator said in that 2007 hearing, should I believe you or my lying eyes?

Certainly one person's personal experience can be more persuasive than actual scientific studies—especially when it confirms his biases—but let's push ahead anyway.

As you can imagine, economic theory predicts that consumers will seek to lower the costs of goods where a sufficient tax differential exists along with relative ease of acquiring the products from the alternative source.

We think we see this principle at work with internet sales that make it easy to circumvent state sales taxes—but application to the border situation is clouded because the internet sales are often deeply discounted as well.

Looking at the literature studying economic activity in response to sales tax rates, I found research that supports the following points: 

Response to differences in the sales tax depends on proximity of border communities. In other words, the farther you have to drive to avoid the tax, the less likely you are to do so. 

How much does distance matter? A 2010 Utah study of local option sales taxes PDF* that investigated distance as a variable found increasing the tax rate lowers taxable sales (all else held equal) when there is a jurisdiction with a lower tax rate within 5 km, or about three miles. The effect disappears altogether within about 40 miles. This is to be expected for low-cost goods and everyday commodities. But it also appears to hold for expensive major purchases such as new or used automobiles.

Occasional forays to other markets are probably more memorable than routine local trips to buy the same goods, causing people to overestimate the total economic impact of their trip to buy tax-free products.

 

Clothing purchases appear less sensitive to tax-influenced decisions. When different types of goods are taken into account, several studies found only modest evidence that consumers would alter their consumption or search for lower tax rates on food, clothing and general consumer goods.

Small tax differentials have small effects. Another study based on a natural experiment compared a local option sales tax increase that resulted in a one-half percent difference between neighboring cities. The town with the higher tax rate showed a modest retail sales decline, but drop did not affect the number of businesses, and the reduced sales revenue for the town was more than offset by the increase in tax revenue.

In cases like cigarette taxes, where cross-border differences are large and the product is regularly consumed, we see clear evidence of cross-border activity.

Bottom line, there's some support for the economic theory or it wouldn't be a theory for long, but people tend over-estimate the larger effect of their own behavior and observations.

Dayton's proposal is a target precisely because it takes on the difficult and sometimes contradictory outcomes of tax reform.

Bruce Nustad, president of the Minnesota Retailers Association, for example, doesn't like the clothing tax: “We like the idea of lowering the overall sales tax rate. The tradeoffs, though, are a little difficult for us.”

Which is maybe why there have been so few serious attempts at reform, despite the theories.

—Charlie Quimby

* The state of Utah has wide diversity in local option sales taxes, enabling researchers to study differences between adjacent communities without distorting effects by comparing different states.

Among the five counties that form the urban core in Utah and represent 70 percent of the state’s population, every major city in each of the counties has a different tax rate. In several rural counties, there are no differences in the tax rates within the counties, but in twenty-six of the twenty-nine counties in Utah, 30 percent of the local taxing jurisdictions have tax rate different from each other.

A week for reflection and commitment to justice and broader prosperity (and yes, taxes and public investments help do that)

We have this week a confluence of events that ought to lift our hopes and sharpen our resolve to reduce racial and economic inequality in our state and nation,  and to build a more inclusive prosperity.

The hope comes from the momentous coincidence today of Martin Luther King's official birthday observance and a re-inauguration, after a convincing re-election,  of the first African-American president of the United States.    Michelle Obama, a descendant of slaves, is the First Lady of a White House that once was occupied by white slave-holders, and actually built by slaves.   This is a remarkable country, capable of extraordinary self-correction, powerful and wealthy because it is governed by its own people, and stronger yet when ALL its people are empowered.  We can  expect President Obama will build on the theme in his inauguration speech that we all do better when we ALL do better.    While the Obamas have succeeded spectacularly, far too many people of color are still left behind, and economic disparities continue to grow between top incomes and families of all races in the middle-income brackets.

In Minnesota, attention swivels on Tuesday to the release of both a two-year state budget proposal and a major tax system overhual from Gov. Mark Dayton.    Minnesota's prosperity rests on an innovative business leadership, to be sure, but also on a  foundation of public investment, in the form of high-quality public education,  physical public works infrastructure, public health and natural resource protection.   We need to invest more and more effectively in those things, including early childhood education and post-secondary training,  and Gov. Dayton can be expected to emphasize that this broader prosperity and better government is the end we seek, while taxes merely are one of the  means.   Minnesotans understand these fundamentals and have long been distinguished by a commitment to public good, as well as private gain.   Let's try to keep this in our heads as we all get ready to argue over the details.

Dane Smith

 

 

How we can help the poor help themselves, and our economy, Selvaggio-style

Joe Selvaggio is a celebrated former priest who has spent nearly half a century helping poor folks become more productive and less poor,  lately through the MicroGrants program and before that, Project for Pride in Living. 

He also recently authored one of the most inspiring and articulate cases I've ever seen for investing in the human potential of our large and growing underclass.   His powerful essay appeared in the Star Tribune on Sunday Nov. 18, and was headlined "Think of the poor as part of the solution: They're a source of economic growth. That's why we can afford to help them.''

Selvaggio is the soul of charity but he's not a naive do-gooder who sees poor folks as purely victims.  And he argues that they ultimately are responsible for grabbing on and pulling up on the hands that are  offered from public and non-profit workforce training providers.  And he also concludes that governments need to invest more in broad-based self-sufficiency and productivity efforts instead of just focusing on direct aid and entitlements.    Citing the success of the Harlem Children's Zone and other non-profits such as Twin Cities Rise! and Summit Academy OIC, Selvaggio notes:  

"Entitlements seem to be anathema to the right, left and center.  But job-training programs are politically acceptable to left, right and center.   The private nonprofit sector has proven that they work, but philanthropy can't do it alone.  Now it's time for government to put muscle behind them...Change the paradigm and think of the poor as locked in a cocoon, ready to develop into a productive creator of wealth.''

Our policy-makers in Minnesota need to find what's working best in in preparing and moving chronically unemployed or under-employed folks in to the decent jobs that are being created in our new economy and right in their communities,  whether it's health-care, transportation, financial industries, or construction.   Growth & Justice is beginning a project that will illuminate those models.   And our legislators and other elected officials must be ready and willing to invest in them.   Because this really is an investment that pays off for everybody.

 

Dane Smith   

 

 

Small businesses aren't built alone—that's how they die

In an op/ed appearing in several Minnesota newspapers, State Representatives Deb Kiel and Dan Fabian call out Minnesota Department of Revenue Commissioner Myron Frans for saying something to the effect that a Thief River Falls entrepreneur did not build his business alone.

It’s evident from the commissioner’s response to the business owner that there are two vastly different ideas as to how we should help our economy grow and add jobs to our area.

The Dayton administration proposes big government, increased taxes and long-term dependency.

We maintain that local businesses — the backbone of our economy — will help rebuild our economy with a more favorable tax code that makes it easier for business owners to operate and expand, decreased regulations and a government that gets out of the way.

The representatives work themselves into a lather over the commissioner's comment so they can segue to a popular and evergreen theme: Minnesota is an unwelcoming place for small business, with taxes and regulation that stifle entrepreneurs and drive companies into the low-tax arms of South Dakota.

But where's the proof? One business owner grumpy about his taxes does not make a case. And while the gentleman's company wouldn't exist without his original vision, hard work and risk-taking to get it off the ground, he could not have built it alone.

No one really builds a business without the help of other people or the support of the community in which it operates.

No matter how hard you work, no matter how smart you are, no matter what the income tax rate is, your business's potential is extremely limited without the talents, ideas, contacts and labor of other people. And while the importance of location varies with the type of business, no owner can function without the public infrastructure, laws and court systems that support the company.

As the founder of a business that has lasted for 24 years, some of them without me since I turned it over to employees, I learned how hard it is to find, recruit and retain good employees, suppliers and customers—and how important place is, in educating workers, giving them relevant experience and providing an environment where they want to live, raise families and enjoy a well-rounded quality of life.

Without employees, you're unlikely to ever have to worry about paying the top tax rate.

However, it's also true that a majority of small businesses are one-person enterprises, so in that sense, there are a lot of business people whose businesses are the product of their work alone.

Starting a business is tough, but it's even harder to build one. Look at these facts:

• The average American small business employed roughly 2.5 to 5 people, depending on the industry. PDF
• 90% of companies with workers on the payroll employed fewer than 20 people in 2007, when the economy was in better shape.
• Only about 3% of small business owners in the U.S. will earn enough to be subject to top-tier federal tax rates; 57% of small businesses have revenues of less than $25,000 a year.
• About half of small businesses either fail or close within five years; by 10 years only about 35% are still around.

Most of these businesses fail to grow because of inexperience, insufficient capital, poor management practices and competition, not regulation and taxes. And here's one more reason why businesses don't grow:

Most small employers are restaurateurs, skilled professionals or craftsmen (doctors, plumbers), professional and general service providers (clergy, travel agents, beauticians), and independent retailers. These aren’t sectors of the economy where product costs drop a lot as the firm grows, so most of these companies are going to remain small. And according to Hurst and Pugsley’s survey evidence, the majority of small business owners say that’s precisely their intent—they didn’t start a business for the money but for the flexibility and freedom. Most have no plans to grow.

In other words, the greatest limitation on the growth of small businesses is the individuals themselves.

I can honestly say that government never got in the way of my business, nor did it directly intervene to make us successful. It simply contributed to the conditions that allowed us to succeed, and when we did, it collected more taxes.

But issues vary by industry. If there's concrete evidence of real problems, Kiel and Fabian should cite them and propose solutions. Instead, they allege a Dayton administration hostility toward business in general, while claiming credit for Minnesota job gains, lower than average unemployment and higher tax revenues that occurred under the governor's watch.

"Getting government out of the way" is a political slogan without an actual track record. Constant carping about Minnesota's tax rankings and business climate hasn't helped a single business, and it's probably scared away a few.

Going back to 2007, we've repeatedy looked for evidence of job migration because of taxes and dug into claims about the superiority of other states as business havens. While we won't deny that businesses occasionally relocate or expand in other states, we've found no credible study that shows taxes and regulation are a significant factor in hampering Minnesota's economic growth.

—Charlie Quimby

Itasca Project elevates higher ed as key to growth

Every serious student of public policy In Minnesota needs to see at least the executive summary of an important new study out this week by the highly respected Itasca Project. The IP is a group of corporate and community leaders that has led the way in the past with consensus-seeking studies on transportation investment, early childhood education needs, and the education achievement gap. The Itasca Project's latest report elevates higher education improvement and attainment as the key to sustained economic growth in Minnesota. Among the findings and recommendations in Higher Education Partnerships for Prosperity:

• Future growth will require "deeper and more relevant skills from the workforce and increased innovation from researchers, entrepreneurs and businesses." By 2018, 70 percent of Minnesota jobs will require postsecondary education.
• Pressure on state budgets during the decade from 2000 to 2010 drove a 35% reduction in public funding per student in Minnesota, which drove up tuition and raised barriers to completion. (My editorial comment: these cuts were driven by an anti-government, anti-tax pledge that was unconscionable, and cutting higher education was dumber than eating seed corn).
• Minnesota strategically needs to: align academic offerings with workforce needs, foster an "ecosystem of research and innovation," form "new collaborations" to "optimize system-wide intellectual assets and efficiency," and (duh, editorial comment again) "graduate more students."

At Growth & Justice, we've been urging for several years now that policymakers set a clear goal for the state for postsecondary completion of 75 percent for all young adults by 2020. Put another way, the best route to sustained prosperity in Minnesota is to ensure that at least three out of four young adults have some sort of post high-school certificate or credential that enables them to enjoy a more productive career and realize their fuller human potential. And this imperative is particularly important for our kids of color, who currently are lagging far behind in academic achievement and attainment. Developing their potential is our best opportunity for business growth and productivity.

--Dane Smith

Top priority for transitway development should be employers and jobs

You are a policymaker and you have a tough choice between two big development proposals for the same site on a key light rail line or transitway. All other things being equal, which do you choose: a major employer or a large housing complex?

If overall accessibility improvement and employer access to labor is the goal, take the employer, says new research presented this week at the 23rd Annual Transportation Research Conference in St. Paul this week.

The research report by University of Minnesota Humphrey School Assistant Professor Yingling Fan was complex and aimed at planning professionals. But the bottom-line key finding was straightforward: "Locating new jobs near transitways produces larger increases in accessibility than locating new housing near transitways.'' Getting these fundamentals right are important because by 2030 we likely will have an integrated network of 14 transitways up and running in the Twin Cities, ranging from light rail to commuter rail to express bus lines. Few public investments are more important for business growth than transporation infractructure.

Fan's research was sponsored by the McKnight Foundation, the Jay & Rose Phillips Family Foundation and the Surdna Foundation. Abstracts from the conference provide rich state-of-the-art thinking on a wide array of transportation investment issues.

Dane Smith 

St. Paul resident and son inspecting Central Corridor construction in downtown St. Paul (Metropolitan Council photo)

Rothschild book offers business sense for all social justice enterprises

There are limitations to the truism that "government ought to run more like a business," or that everything ought to be run like a business, but there's a new book out with a lot of wisdom and practical tips on how every enterprise focused on social justice can learn from business principles. The book is "The Non Nonprofit" and the author is Steve Rothschild, a prominent Twin Citian who was a successful vice president at General Mills and the even more celebrated founder of Twin Cities RISE!, a program that's shown real results in reducing poverty. Steve's a clear and convincing writer and the book is full of real world examples that will resonate with Minnesotans. He offers seven principles on which nonprofits and those of us interested in expanding prosperity should focus, focus, focus:

1. Have a Clear and Appropriate Purpose, 2. Measure What Counts, 3. Be Market Driven, 4. Create Mutual Accountability, 5. Support Personal Empowerment, 6. Create Economic Value from Social Benefit, and 7. Be Learning Driven. And there's a great section at the back of the book with advice on what policymakers and government officials can do to instill these principles. Social justice has its own righteous purpose but linkage to business growth and business principles makes it all the more compelling.

Dane Smith   

Lessons from Cincinnati: Total community effort begins to show results

Lynda Jackson is a southern lady with a sweet disarming drawl, but she's a steel magnolia when it comes to school improvement and demanding real results. Jackson is the superintendent of the school district in Covington, Kentucky, across the Ohio River from Cincinnati, and she's steering this very poor school district toward individualized learning plans for every student. She also is transforming Holmes High School into an "early college high school," with a goal of every student earning at least 15 college credits before graduation.

Meanwhile, over in Cincinnati and on both sides of the river, the Ascend Performance Institute is developing high-performing teams of principals and teacher leaders through intensive, accelerated sessions featuring best practices and case studies and taught by topnotch leaders in education, business and medicine. The template for this instruction was drawn from the Mayo Clinic model of integrated expertise and "putting the patient (students) first."

A pivotal catalyst for these efforts and countless others in Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky is the Strive Partnership, described as a "backbone organization" of truly comprehensive community sweep, dedicated to improving student success. Strive has more than 300 partners, including the region's leading corporations, regional business associations, the Catholic schools, lots of foundations and nonprofits, early childhood advocates, and of course, the school districts and higher education systems.

I'm privileged this week to be part of a "Student Success Core Team" from Grand Rapids with the support of the Blandin Foundation, taking an immersion course on the Strive model and other education reform efforts in the region. The Strive example also is being studied by a working group of Twin Cities’ advocates for improving school outcomes.

As we sat down to hear their story, we were warned at once by Strive leader Jeff Edmondson (see his TED lecture here) not to get too worshipful of the Strive model. Although groups of school and nonprofit leaders are descending on Cincinnati regularly to learn about the six-year-old partnership, Edmondson said progress has been painful, slow, uneven and even "ugly." Lots of mistakes have been made, he said, and he encourages each region that tries to replicate Strive to build its own set of standards and goals and prescriptions, from the ground up.

But there is some truly impressive progress to consider. On 40 out of 53 benchmarks for educational success set by the partnership, mainly basic test scores in 4th and 8th grade and measures of college retention and graduation, schools in Cincinnati and northern Kentucky have improved since the baseline year of 2005-2006. And that's despite a severe recession and worsening poverty rates in a region that's been struggling for decades with a decline in its industrial economic base. In Covington, the percentage of students qualifying for free or reduced-price lunch, a standard benchmark of income status, is a staggering 90 percent.

Of all the many ways this Strive animal was described, I thought "Building a Cradle-to-Career Civic Infrastructure'' might have been the best. As developed here, the model consists of five goals: every child prepared for school, every child supported in and out of school, every child succeeding academically, every student enrolled in post-secondary study (college or instruction for a workforce credential) and every student graduating and entering a career.

"Strive gives air to good ideas and then helps implement them faster than they would be otherwise," said Leslie Maloney, a senior vice-president of a major foundation tied to a banking family, and a member of the Strive executive committee.

Almost everybody involved agrees that Strive's strength and its effectiveness so far has been drawn from good-faith buy-in and persistence by just about everybody with any kind of stake at all in the community, in every sector. The partners include corporate giants, the chambers of commerce and business moguls -- particularly Procter & Gamble, and nonprofits and funders such as the United Way and KnowledgeWorks, an operating foundation with a mission of school success and a sponsor of the Strive Partnership.

These partners are elites within the community. Grassroots support and commitment from more ordinary folks would be helpful to this "everybody in" philosophy, and we had the great fortune of listening to a guru on the theme of community vitality and how neighborhoods can be energized and empowered to improve themselves. Peter Block, a Cincinnatian and author of the book "The Abundant Community: Awakening the Power of Families and Neighborhoods,'' spoke to our group to start the day. Block said that big system reforms can be an elusive mirage and while they "can deliver some things, the schools can't raise a child. ... I spent decades on school reform (before realizing) that the question is, `How do we raise a child?'" I'd highly recommend checking out his book or the website linked above for elaboration.

More tomorrow, in the third and final installment from Cincinnati. 

--Dane Smith 

 

No sector can do "it" unless we all do something

Dane Smith was engaged all last week with Peter Nelson of the Center of the American Experiment in an MPR Insight Now online debate and broadcast on the proper roles of government and the private sector. MPR asked, "If the private sector can do it, should the government get out of it?"

Meanwhile, I was doing what I do every Thursday — volunteering in the preschool run by People Serving People — the largest and most comprehensive, family-focused shelter in Minnesota. It brings together public dollars, private philanthropy and other community resources to help homeless families get back into stable housing. Its Early Childhood Development Center provided provided childcare and learning experiences for 698 children in 2010.

[You can read more about my adventures at PSP and the Catholic Outreach Day Center in Colorado here, in The Shelter Report feature of my personal blog. This work is a great antidote to getting too abstract and policy-wonky when it comes to issues.]

We took kids from the pre-school out to the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum. I wrote about a boy I met on my trip there a year ago. This time was different because we had a smaller group of children and more volunteers.

Our field trip was mostly uneventful and unstructured — spent walking around the grounds, looking at flowers, splashing hands in fountains, climbing structures, watching koi swim around and keeping kids away from several batches of goslings — so I'm not certain how much the kids got out of it. Or the adults, for that matter.

It's hard for both the adults and the kids to adjust to each other for the first time. The adults leave their corporate headquarters, come into a busy urban homeless shelter and get matched up with a small child, usually of a different race. The kids have enough turmoil in their lives that they aren't in a hurry to bond with yet another stranger who shows up out of nowhere.

But I shouldn't be jaded just because green plants and garden follies aren't on my personal must-see list.

There isn't any grass where these children are living now. There are no ponds or flowers or squirrels and geese. Their shade comes from tall buildings and a lone tree in the playground. So it's not surprising when a new discovery would evoke a child's heartfelt "Bee-YOU-tee-ful!"

The field trip was sponsored by a major corporation in the news for its political contributions, and lately, its union-blocking efforts in New York. The volunteers were all from the company's legal department. In my regular life, I'd want to talk to insiders about those issues, but this wasn't the place. Nor did I get a chance to ask them about their motivations for and quality of their volunteer experience.

Still, it got me thinking.

The Arboretum has the University of Minnesota attached to its name. It receives 12 percent of its budget from the U, and the University Foundation manages its $23-million endowment. A walk through its grounds will turn up familiar names of private benefactors who provide most of its support — MacMillan, Cargill and Wurtele, Xcel Energy, Comcast and Best Buy — but there are also smaller, four-figure donors, including Seward Co-op, and lots of people who send in $25. 

If you allocated a portion of all the contributions that enabled these kids to see this Bee-YOU-tee-ful place, the line items in the spreadsheet would have to list state and local governments, corporations, wealthy people, small donors, volunteers, nonprofits and celebrities. If this were funded entirely by the state, a governor facing a budget shutdown would likely have to declare this place a "non-essential service."

Thanks to the small government orthodoxy sweeping our state houses, we get hung up on an unbridgeable dichotomy between what the government should do and what the private sector should do.

The beautiful reality in this community is we are working alongside each other all the time, in ever-changing combinations of public and private, with funding by taxpayers, customers, supporting members, individual givers, foundations, church congregants, kids and adult volunteers.

We should all take a deep breath once in a while to give each other credit, while recognizing the limitations of any one sector going it alone.

— Charlie Quimby