The following editorial appeared in the La Crosse Tribune on Sunday, Sept. 30

Growing the economy and creating jobs are the top concerns of voters in this election year.

I believe that when we grow the economy and create jobs, we lift people off the government safety net and make them taxpayers. This will solve our state’s budget problems for the long term.

Some suggest that sharing in sacrifice is an unavoidable part of our future. Throughout history, people have suggested that human beings have invented everything there is to invent. They have said economic growth has halted and that we must get used to a new normal that isn’t as prosperous as the past. These suggestions have been proven wrong in the past, and they’ll be proven wrong again.

How is the economy in Wisconsin poised to grow?

Consumers are demanding organic foods, and Organic Valley has led the way. This company has increased what would normally be $500 million in commodity food items to $700 million in value-added products. This has increased the incomes of family farms, and it will preserve family farms in western Wisconsin. Meanwhile, traditional dairy and crop farms in Wisconsin continue to cement our state’s reputation as a worldwide leader in agriculture.

Kwik Trip is at the forefront of a natural gas revolution in America. Petroleum products are $4 per gallon, and the natural gas equivalent is $1.59. Kwik Trip is building a network of fueling stations from Chicago to the Twin Cities, an innovation that will lower prices for all consumers while making the environment cleaner.

Developing Wisconsin’s natural resources also will create tremendous economic growth. Earlier this year, partisan gridlock shut the doors on up to 9,000 family-supporting jobs when a much-needed reform to our state’s mine-approval process failed in the Senate by one vote. The proposed iron mine in Iron County would have had a $1.2 billion annual economic impact on Wisconsin’s economy. The jobs in the mine would average almost $83,000 per year in wages and benefits.

Our state government can help or hinder the growth of these and other emerging industries. It’s important that we have competitive taxes and sensible regulations to support these new industries and the jobs they’ll create.

Our state’s world-class education system is a vital part of making sure the innovation keeps happening. We need to prioritize education and make sure that our high schools are working with local businesses and technical colleges to train workers for the jobs our economy is producing.

Our health care system is another competitive advantage for Wisconsin. We need to make sure companies considering a move to Wisconsin understand the value of having the best healthcare in the world for their employees at places like Gundersen Lutheran and Mayo Health System.

These are just some the reasons why I’m optimistic about our economic future and why I believe that the best is yet to come for western Wisconsin

The warehouse at Fifth Season was lined with boxes, each containing one watermelon. When I walked in to say hello to the folks at the Viroqua farmers’ cooperative I wondered what the story was behind the odd sight.

A man was taping the two long rows of boxes shut. He was clearly tired, having assembled all 130 of them and put the watermelons into the boxes one at a time. My years of experience as a food salesman made me scratch my head. What’s going on, I wondered. Produce like this is usually shipped in bulk.

The director, Diane Chapeta, arrived while I was conversing with Eric, the farmer who was working double shifts for Fifth Season. I’ve met Diane a couple times before, once while touring her facility.

They were in a hurry to prep the shipment of watermelons for a pick-up by a truck from Reinhart Foods that was coming up quickly. I offered to help, so Eric and Diane told my staff member and I that we could start by taping a row of boxes shut. We gladly obliged.

While I closed the boxes and Chris taped them I learned this whole routine was new to Fifth Season. As we started applying Diane’s hand-written labels I wasn’t surprised to find out they were being forced to go through this routine because of a change in corporate policy. The company that was trucking Fifth Season’s products from Viroqua to its hub in La Crosse was no longer selling these products individually unless they’re individually labeled.

It struck me as odd, but I had to ask myself what the real reason was. I found out it was actually the result of a new federal regulation that bars food distributors  from splitting cases, or receiving cases of multiple products like watermelons from cooperatives like Fifth Season, then selling them individually to restaurants, grocery stores, and others.

The ripple effects, unbeknownst to regulators and elected officials, hurt only the smaller businesses. Businesses like Fifth Season, which is just starting off, will be forced to stop buying products that the largest customers usually don’t purchase one at a time.

The small farming operations that grow watermelons and other crops sold in bulk are hurt because cooperatives must either pass along higher costs to them or stop buying their products because of the added packaging costs. How much could individual packaging cost? The boxes, labels, tape, wrap, and labels are enough of a cost to slash the profit margin.

Smaller restaurants and grocers will be hurt because they can no longer buy smaller quantities of necessary products. Instead of buying smaller quantities, they’re now forced to buy bulk and store them in inventory. They pay taxes on their inventories, so they’re hit twice, once when the grocery bill arrives, and next when the tax bill arrives.

The regulation’s reason is probably to better track food items that carry contaminants. But the ripple effect is a small earthquake that hurts many bystanders.

But it’s just one regulation among tens of thousands of pages. It’s also the kind of story that usually goes untold, but I’m telling it here to make a clear point: we need our legislators to be careful to look at the unintended consequences of their laws, and to make sure regulations that go on the books are sensible.