 Many lakes area business owners enjoyed their breakfast this morning while interacting with their local legislators discussing issues that affect business in the area. Our Anthony Scott has more on the annual eggs and issues event. We cover issues related to business jobs in the economy, a lot of different businesses here today, a lot of different sectors, and we covered a lot of topics that really matter in the state of Minnesota. The three major topics at the breakfast were health care for employees, taxes, and the shortage in the workforce. Workforce issues up in our neck of the woods are tough. We have a lot of young people that are going to four-year college just because they believe they have to to get a good job, and that's not necessarily true. Post and said that the lakes area desperately needs workers that have a specific trade. Technical schools in the area are doing a good job preparing workers for the workforce, but more students have to be interested in learning trades. The next topic of discussion was the economy and taxes. This economy here in Minnesota is really been very very very strong. We got to be very careful going forward that we make sure we're watching spending. We're not just going to go ahead and hey it's a free for all we have a surplus. No we got to be very cautious and make sure that we have a great balanced budget. The almost one and a half billion dollar surplus could mean lower taxes for businesses in the future. Everybody's concerned about taxes and we need to do some things with the surplus or over taxation you know to bring to bring our taxes down hopefully. The lower taxes could result in more businesses thriving and to help businesses attract more customers the Brainerd Chamber of Commerce president discussed the National Loone Center which could be built as soon as 2022 attracting visitors from all over. 80,000 year-round tourists that are coming in to the community every single year they're learning about our state bird they're learning about conservation and they're also patronizing our businesses so it's really a win-win situation. Today's eggs and issues event was also a win-win for business owners and legislators. This is always a great event the legislators love coming to it the business people I think like coming and like the interaction and like I said earlier we all learn a lot. Now the state representatives will take what they learned from today's meeting and hopefully push the ideas forward at the Capitol. Reporting from Brainerd Anthony Scott Lakeland News. State representatives and state senators at that eggs and issues breakfast want to hear from the public and encourage anyone to reach out to them via email if they have any questions or concerns. If you enjoyed this segment of Lakeland News please consider making a tax-deductible contribution to Lakeland PBS.