Letters to Bush

There are two main causes of the problem: lack of exercise and poor diet. You are already setting a good example in terms of fitness. Now you need to address the role of added sugar in the diet. According to the USDA, the average American consumes about 45 pounds of processed sugar every year, well over what the World Health Organization recommends. If P. Diddy can spark national interest in running, imagine what you can do as President by speaking out on eating healthy. We're doing our part by making Honest Tea, a variety of organic teas that taste great and have only 4 to 10 grams of sugar per 16-ounce bottle. Here's what we'd like you to do:

(1) Ask the FDA to set a recommended daily allowance for added sugar and encourage food companies to disclose on their labels how much added sugar is in their products. If consumers start paying attention to how much added sugar is in the foods they buy, they will start to make informed and healthier choices.

(2) Show people that great-tasting, healthy alternatives exist by drinking Honest Tea in public. We'd be happy to send over a case or two. Avoid being photographed holding a bottle of soda or sweetened iced tea; one 16-ounce bottle of those drinks can contain up to 60 grams of sugar--25% more sugar than the World Health Organization recommends for an entire day. Life is sweet enough.

We understand that you are a teetotaler. Why not become an Honest Tea totaler?

Honestly yours,

Seth Goldman and Barry Nalebuff
Co-founders
Honest Tea
Bethesda, Md.

Dear President Bush:

I appreciate your efforts to help companies like mine through the recent tax cut legislation, but I sure wish you'd made it easier for us to understand what was in it. In all due respect, your administration has done a pretty poor job of explaining how businesses can take advantage of, for example, the additional first-year bonus depreciation on capital investments. That provision alone will save my company tens of thousands of dollars this year while making it possible for us to improve our productivity and boost our equity value.

But we're lucky in that regard. Few small companies have access to the accounting expertise that might alert them in advance to the tax implications of what they're doing, or could be doing, and so the vast majority won't learn about the bonus depreciation provision until tax time. If the company operates on a calendar year, that will be next March.

If you really want to help small companies, Mr. President, you have to be willing to make things comic-book simple. In this case, you could use a company like mine as an example. Of the 20 different businesses that make up SRC Holdings, 11 are involved in some type of manufacturing. Let's say we invest $1 million in new machine tools that have a 10-year useful life. We can deduct half of that amount--$500,000--from our pretax income and depreciate the remaining $500,000 over 10 years, including this one. So we'd actually be deducting $550,000 this year. Our overall tax rate is 40%--34% federal and 6% state. That means we'll be saving $220,000 (40% x $550,000) that we'd otherwise be spending on taxes. Yes, we'll eventually wind up paying the same amount of taxes we would have paid anyway--we're just taking more of the depreciation up front--but in the meantime we'll be able to enjoy the benefits of the new equipment, which will increase our after-tax profits and thereby boost our equity value. We'll also be creating jobs for the people who supply the goods we're buying.

It's a great deal for any company that earns a profit and therefore pays taxes. It helps us overcome the fear we have that the recovery won't continue and we'll be stuck paying for capital equipment we don't need and can't afford. But I doubt the provision will have the effect you hope for unless you get out there and sell it.

Yours truly,

Jack Stack
President & CEO
SRC Holdings
Springfield, Mo.

Dear President Bush:

Thank you for providing an example of leadership based in faith. In crisis or in victory, you confidently assert your faith in the American people and your faith in God. This has had as much of a positive impact on our company and our economy as any policy decisions you could make.

If there is one specific issue that would assist emerging businesses, I believe it is tort reform. Most business owners live with a nagging fear that they could lose much of what they and their associates have built with one frivolous lawsuit. I would guess that in your business career you experienced some of those same moments. I realize this is a tough issue complicated by the number of legislators who have enjoyed careers in the legal profession. But I hope you can help find a way to compensate those who are legitimately wronged while lessening the burden on growing businesses.

Sincerely,

Steven M. Craig
President
Gameplan Financial Marketing
Woodstock, Ga.

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