Sen. Jim DeMint: To Save Small Businesses, Obama Must Go

From the look and sound of things, Adex Machining Technologies has a bright future ahead of it as it continues to grow and build customers in the aerospace, defense, and energy sectors.

Led by Jason Premo and Sean Witty, two young, erstwhile Georgia Tech graduates, the company — located on Feaster Road in Greenville — machines heavy-metal components for the likes of Boeing and Sikorsky and General Electric. 

Begun in 2007 with just a handful of employees, the company now employs nearly 50. Several of those employees earn wages in the range of $60,000 annually, Premo said, with a handful of others earning six figures — many with only a tech school degree.

Still, despite the company's apparent success, both Premo and Witty fret about their company's future — everything from access to capital to skyrocketing health care costs to taxes. In addition, the local company finds itself at the mercy of a global economy it has no control over, since many of its customers are multi-national companies whose bottom lines are tied in with overseas markets still roiled by the world-wide recession that began in 2008.

Amid this uncertainty, Premo told Patch: "If we wanted to, I don't think we could start this business now."

Sen. Jim DeMint, who toured the business on Monday, laid much of the blame for such uncertainty on the federal government, and said that the next president and the new Congress ought to set itself on a path to correct it.

DeMint was in Spartanburg and Greenville on Monday to tour Adex and continue his "Saving Small Business" tour.

DeMint started the day with a Spartanburg Chamber of Commerce breakfast at 8 a.m. at The Piedmont Club. At 12 p.m. he provided the keynote address at a Greenville Chamber of Commerce lunch at The Kroc Center at Westfield Street in Greenville. 

At Adex, DeMint told Patch: "A lot of the things we're doing in Washington are making it harder [for businesses]," DeMint said, starting with tax policy. "I've had a small business owner with 150 employees who showed me, quit simply, two business plans. He said, 'if tax rates go up I don't do anything. If tax rates stay the same, I hire 25 people….' You know, I really feel like I'm working with people in Washington who have never signed the front of a paycheck, like these guys.

"Up there, we just bring more power and money to Washington, and create inefficiency and high costs — that's the message I hear consistently across the state," the senator said.

DeMint that the place to start to correct things begins with the federal deficit.

"It seems like an indirect thing, but we need to cut spending and move towards a balanced budget," DeMint said. "Otherwise, we're going to keep taking money from the private sector, we're going to keep borrowing money, which makes it harder for these guys to get credit. As government grows and takes money from the private sector, there's really less [money] left for these guys to put to work."

A balanced budget "is key," DeMint added, and so is a simple tax rate. "And South Carolina needs to do a lot of work, too, on property and other types of taxes as well, to make sure we're the best place to do business. So, I'm going to try to be an advocate for policies in Columbia as well."

DeMint said he has toured dozens of businesses over the past month. The constant refrain, he said, was "uncertainty."

"The constant uncertainty of competition and technology is enough to deal with," DeMint said. "But if the laws, and the regulation, and the taxation — if all of that becomes uncertain, too — those are too many variables to get investment to bet the farm on, if someone is just going to shift the ground under you as you move forward."

For DeMint, a lot of the future depends on who gets into office come Nov. 6. As the election nears, the senator — who has created a Super PAC to elect conservatives and Tea Party favorites — said he is "cautiously optimistic" that Mitt Romney will unseat President Obama.

".... I can't believe people would vote for more of this [uncertainty]" from the current administration, he said. "I think the real problem we have is different from the 1980s when Reagan was running; actually it's worse now than when [President Jimmy] Carter was in. There are more people on public assistance — and once you get folks on public assistance, it's hard to get them to vote for less government…. I still think Romney's going to win this, and hopefully we'll get a chance to turn this around."

Said Witty: "I'll make a clear statement. I support the candidate who has free-market principles and who builds the government going forward on the same principles that have built this country the past 150 years — that made it a powerhouse. If Obama does that? Wonderful. If Romney does that? Wonderful. Whoever wins needs to do that. Free-market principles will bring us back to prosperity."