Why Republicans and John Kline are Bad for Small Business

Basically, there was another speech that I wanted to make at the Chamber of Commerce John Kline/Steve Sarvi debate - that Republicans and John Kline are bad for small business! My experience with the Chamber of Commerce is that only a few businesses benefit, while most of the members are too hard working to notice.

First of all, small business should get treated better because it actually does better!

Republican government favors big business! Republican government favors big business through low transportation costs that favors imports, through strong dollars that favors imports, through tax policies that allow big business to avoid US taxes. Meanwhile all locally owned small business with local products are still managing to compete in this totally unfair playing field.

Health care should not be a business concern. Small business should survive based on its own business, not the health risk of the people working there. The private health care insurance providers only use 67% of every health care dollar to provide health care, only really provide insurance to the healthy and in general do not provide low-cost competitive options. Health care should taken out of small business concerns, it should be a community wide pool of provided health insurance!

The National Federation of Independent Business, the nation's leading small business advocacy group, in a briefing today released its Small Business Healthcare Survey, the most recent, comprehensive small business healthcare data available. The survey of small business owners identified cost as the single most important problem facing the health system today.
(NFIB)

Basically, government should ensure that the US has the same productive ready workforce that has always been the advantage of the US. So education, health care, affordable accessible daycare and low cost available transportation help out every small business!

Laws should be a equal burden and a level playing field. If a small business produces a healthy carefully crafted product then any foreign product that does not meet those standards should not be allowed into our market. Chinese melamine-contaminated milk and Chinese melamine-contaminated dog food are just the worst cases of this. Both the consumer and small businesses are protected by ensuring that only the same quality of products are allowed to be imported.

Don't be fooled by the no-taxes mantra, it is the super rich that are getting the major tax breaks while small business are tax break crumbs. The tax break crumbs look good until you realize that government is falling apart - like the fact that bridges in Minnesota are falling down or ready to fall down. The tax break crumbs look good until you realize that most of the burden of the cost of government is going to debt - debt being bought by the Chinese government. If you are competing against Chinese products, you should be worried! The tax break crumbs look good until you realize that government debt load is tanking our economy. Then taxes begin to look good compared to no income to be taxed!

Finally, Republican government singles out a few businesses to benefit while all other businesses pay. These Republican government actions that help some business is totally unfair to the rest of business.

So in my city of St Paul, some businesses like the Lawson building received a huge amount of help from the city. The rest of the businesses as well as homeowners paid for those special privileges. When the hockey rink received government support, only the businesses in the very local area were helped. It would have been better to have our tax dollars support the whole city infrastructure, perhaps investing in lower energy lights!

Recently, the state financially helped the Mall of America giving that business an advantage over every mall and small shopping business in the state. How could anyone see that fair? The Republican governor does not favor Minnesota based companies, where is the loyalty?

And no one is as unfair as the federal government when it comes to small business. The Republican politicians award no-bid contracts on the basis of cronyism. The largest companies get the biggest tax breaks with the ability to ship profits out of the country for tax purposes. Companies like Walmart are forcing small shopping businesses into extinction.

I ran a small business for three years, "The Pet Barbers" and I grew up on a small farm, so I do have that sense of what being totally responsible for a business is like. So basically my heart is with small business.