“Small businesses need to have competitive tax rates,” said U.S. Rep. Dan Meuser, R-Dallas, a member of the House Financial Services and Small Business committees.

Meuser touched on the taxes and excessive regulations on businesses at the Williamsport-Lycoming Chamber of Commerce Morning Member Connection at the Williamsport Country Club.

He promised those in the room that the Republican majority in the House would always try to find ways to reduce the tax burden on small businesses and tame overregulation by agencies in government.

Meuser said he had the small business owner in mind because he helped to grow a family business from small to large. He was an executive at Pride Mobility Products, a business he built with his brother Scott and his father Stan. His brother, Scott, is the chairman and CEO of the company. Meuser left the company in August 2008 to pursue a career in public service. He had worked there since 1988.

Meuser said today the Luzerne County facility employs 1,200 and there are 400 workers in different parts of the world, selling the product line internationally.

“When you are conditioned over time as you are as business people that impacts you, that is who you are,” he said.

Meuser was appointed state Secretary of Revenue by Gov. Tom Corbett after more than two decades in the private sector in 2011.

He used common sense business practices as a template for success and efficiency and made a place where people want to work, he said.

When he took office in the House in 2019 he said his focus was to “bring business practices to the government.”

In terms of inflation, Meuser said it grew over the pandemic years and would continue under a Kamala Harris administration and Democrat-controlled Senate, who he said have a “tax and spend philosophy.”

Furthermore, Meuser said he and the Republican majority in the House have fought against excessive government regulation.

In terms of economic development, Meuser said he put in for community funding projects for FY 2025.

It included nearly $3 million ($2,964,500) intended for Williamsport Municipal Authority and $1.1 million for Pennsylvania College of Technology Forest Products Training Center.

The project will include building, site and equipment upgrades and an addition to the Schneebeli Earth Science Center to accommodate a new, cutting-edge mill supporting curricular enhancements that will augment the existing program for students seeking careers in the lumber and timber industry.

Later, Michel Miller, water and sanitary authority executive director, confirmed the funding request would be used for the replacement of the authority’s large transmission main out of the water filtration plant.

“The project will benefit our complete water service area,” Miller said.

Meuser said his work continues with state representatives and local officials on projects such as last year getting $3.5 million for the levee recertification, $2.6 million for Old City revitalization in Williamsport and funds for the Williamsport Regional Airport.

“As soon as I came in I saw just how strong and how much work has been done and how ready that airport was to deliver, and deliver for so much – all the booming businesses here,” he said.

“I am disappointed in myself for not doing more, so we’re going to do more,” Meuser said, regarding funding the airport in Montoursville which has flights by Southern Express Airways that take customers to and from Dulles International Airport.

Meuser said he continues to work closely with the Williamsport Airport Authority board president Frank Pellegrino and executive director of the airport Richard Howell on the airport’s future development and needs.

“We push,” he said. “We don’t stop. We are persistent. That is what it takes in government. That is what it takes in business.”