Congressmen Mike Kelly, R-3rd, and Keith Rothfus, R-12th, say tax reform is needed and American tax law is stifling Pennsylvania's — and the country's — economic growth.

Kelly and Rothfus answered questions from Butler County business owners who attended a roundtable discussion Friday hosted by the Pittsburgh North Regional Chamber at Cranberry Highlands Golf Course in Cranberry Township.

Both congressmen said tax reform should be addressed since American tax law hasn't been updated since 1986 but has been amended 4,000 times and is more than 75,000 pages long.

Kelly said lowering taxes on small business and business in general will stimulate job growth. As the owner of Mike Kelly Automotive in Butler, he said business owners require incentives to continue to invest in their businesses.

“For all of us in the private sector, it's very difficult to go forward and make the investments that you need to make if it's not incentivized. You want to be able to make that commitment. You also want to think if 'I spend this money today, down the road will it backfill later on?,'” he said. “The real key is how do we make America get back to work? How do we encourage business owners to make that decision, to make that investment, to buy that land, to buy that equipment, to hire those folks?”

However, Kelly said despite tax reform, the country cannot heal itself financially without eliminating its debt.

“If we don't get our cost of operation under control, it doesn't matter how much we reform our taxes. We're running so far ahead of what we can afford. With the costs we have now we can never generate enough revenue to pay for what we're doing,” he said. “We've all co-signed the note whether we like it or not. You're the co-signer on every one of these debts. Maybe it's not going to hit you in your lifetime but I guarantee your kids and your grandkids are going to see it.”

Kelly said Congress needs to start by addressing its overspending on government programs that are not sustainable.

“There's not one of you who run a business that would think that the only answer to your success is by generating more revenue. It doesn't matter what your revenue is if your costs exceed anything you could possibly generate,” he said. “Right now in our country this year, we are going to come about $750 million short of just meeting what we've already decided we're going to spend. That's an incredibly unrealistic business model.”

Rothfus said financial overregulation has created income disparity, which consequently inhibits the flow of capital into the marketplace.

“That (financial overregulation) has resulted in 650,000 fewer small businesses over the last eight years, which translates to a missing 6.5 million jobs,” he said. “We're taking a look at the overregulation that we've seen and ways to get the capital flowing again so that people's incomes can start to go up again.”

However, he said through the Congressional Review Act government regulations have been eliminated that were costing the country money and were unproductive.

“There's been a lot of progress made over the last six months on regulations. We've been able to pull back some of the regulations that simply did not meet cost-benefit analysis saving up to $30 billion in compliance costs and millions of hours of work that was unproductive. Not being out there getting new business and not out there solving problems but complying with government, that doesn't make any sense,” he said. “We're making progress but a lot more needs to be done.”

Kelly said he believes income disparity has developed because many people don't have the skills or education necessary to obtain jobs in today's workforce.

“The No. 1 problem we have today is that we're not getting young people ready for the opportunities that exist right now right here. If the only thing you qualify for is a minimum wage job, how can you expect to ever rise from there?” he asked. “Get people educated for the jobs that are available. There's a lot of talent out there that has not been cultivated, has not been educated and we're not getting the full result of a good education.”