The other day, I was talking to an acquaintance about the overregulation in our local area that has to do with small businesses. In fact, my acquaintance is a former small business owner, but he today he became a left wing Democrat and he tells me; “It’s a tradeoff, we need those regulations to protect people, the environment, and prevent dishonest practitioners.” I found it strange that someone who had actually been a small business owner would talk like that.
Apparently he has been talking to too many neo-socialist liberals in our area for too long. Maybe she’s been retired too long and needs to get her butt back to work so she can remember what she was like? Am I being too harsh, you ask? No, actually I’m not. In fact, in his case, he had a business in the automotive sector where he painted cars. Custom paint jobs for the film industry and TV commercials.
Most of the vehicles he worked on were new cars, and the paint jobs had to be perfect for the camera. Regulations became so strict that he could no longer afford to do his business in California, so he took a loss on the business and sold it and became an employee of General Motors in their marketing division in California. California.
Maybe it’s just me, but I find it strange that due to local, state, and federal regulations, he had to go out of business, even after all his investments in equipment, building improvements, and the like; however, it is now up for more regulations or at least keeping the ones we currently have on the books. The reality is that we have too much regulation in this nation and it comes from all levels of government; it comes from the municipal level, the county, the state, the federal government, and who knows what other quasi-governmental agencies, special assessment districts, or new case law adding complications to all the regulations.
Many people think that we need all these regulations, but we don’t. Sure, we need a set of rules and regulations for standardization and to keep everyone on the same page and honest. But we don’t need duplication, expensive fees, incredible fines, and the threat of jail time for small business owners who may not even have known the rules, and believe me, they seem to change quite frequently. It is as if the politically correct socialist agenda is attacking free market enterprise even though employers are the ones providing all the jobs. Meanwhile, the same group of Democrats is complaining that there aren’t enough jobs and that small employers aren’t hiring enough.
Well, if we run around and try to put them all out of business with paperwork and bland rules, they’re not going to hire anyone. You should be happy with the people you hire and treat them with a little more respect, and reducing those regulations could go a long way toward mending the fence and gap between reality and all those regulations on the books. Please consider all this and think about it.
