Lower income taxes would help Iowa avoid a worker shortfall when the Baby Boomer generation retires, magazine publisher and former presidential candidate Steve Forbes told a crowd at the West Des Moines Marriott yesterday.

“Lower the income tax, and you’ll see people coming to this state in droves,” he said, adding: “With technology, geography doesn’t matter anymore.

“Forbes magazine recently ranked Des Moines fourth on its list of “Best Places for Business,” based on factors such as the cost of doing business, the cost of living, educational attainment and crime rates.

“This state has a lot of great things going for it already,” he said. “It should be witnessing a population boom and an economic expansion. We just have to take down these artificial barriers.”

Forbes, who was the keynote speaker at Broker Dealer Financial Services Corp.’s national sales conference, said the American economy gets no respect, despite how much it has grown in recent years,

“There isn’t a nation in the world that wouldn’t trade their problems for ours,” he said.