New Glarus Brewing co-founder and president Deborah Carey was among a group of small business owners who met with President Barack Obama on Wednesday in the White House, where she praised Obama for his work on health care and urged him to consider higher taxes for investors.
Carey also chided Obama for failing to do a better job of celebrating the administration’s successes.
Carey was one of 15 small business owners called to the White House to meet with Obama and Vice President Joe Biden about the looming fiscal cliff.
“They were really looking to us for ideas to increase revenue or things that would help us grow our business,” Carey said told WisBusiness.com via phone while she waited for her plane to fly back to Wisconsin.
Carey said she stressed to him the need for skilled labor and told him his health care law was “at least a step in the right direction” in helping small businesses deal with the burdensome costs of health care.
“I think he needs reinforcement, too, for the good work he is doing,” Carey said.
“I said, ‘Look, the thing is I pay regular income tax, and I’m the guy who drags my butt out of bed at 7 in morning and goes to work until I drop seven days a week for 20 years,'” she said.
“‘Why am I not getting the great break? Why should it be the silent investors?'”
Obama has proposed ending the Bush-era tax cuts on income amounts greater than $250,000 a year. She acknowledged that she and her husband, Dan, the New Glarus brewmaster, would be impacted by those rates going up. However, she said she would have no problem with that. “Everyone needs to pitch in,” she said. “It’s going to have to come from both sides. It can’t just be cuts and can’t just be tax increases, either.”
Carey also received three bottles of White House Beer as part of the trip.
“I called Joe ‘Joe,’ which I got a kiss for, and I got beer, so I think I did OK,” Carey said.
To view a photo of Carey’s visit in the White House, click here.
WisBusiness.com is a media partner of BizTimes.
