RALEIGH – On Thursday, February 21, Republican Lt. Governor (and 2020 contender for governor) Dan Forest will be joining Linda McMahon, head of the U.S. Small Business Administration and advocate for America’s 30 million small businesses, for a roundtable discussion on the topic of international trade with small business owners from the Triangle.

Small businesses are the fuel that keeps the American engine running. They employ the most people, have the biggest economic impact, and their owners are often community leaders. Hence, the extent to which governments tax and regulate small businesses has an inordinate impact on the health of economies large and small.

Forest has made several joint appearances with McMahon in the last year, most recently in the aftermath of Hurricane Florence. He is demonstrating his focus on helping Main Street escape the grip of bureaucrats and regulators.

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Quite to the contrary, Gov. Roy Cooper, who launched his re-election campaign in New York City, is a fan of growing the government footprint as much as possible, regulating businesses large and small, and making it harder for the small-business owners in the Old North State to be successful and hire more employees.

As such the economic growth platform for Forest is already far and away stronger than Cooper’s. That should make voters’ choice in 2020 pretty easy.