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My Point of View by Brad Kramer

Republicans have maintained a history of being pro-business while Democrats bring forward anti-business regulations. How does this matter if you are not a business owner? Business affects every aspect of your life. When you go to the grocery store and buy a tomato, you’ve completed a business transaction. Everyone who has taken a part in bringing that tomato to your store takes a share of that transaction and is reflected in the price. The business that provided the seeds to the farmer, the farmer and their employees who planted, fertilized, picked and packed that tomato, the costs associated with growing, shipping and packaging the tomato (fuel, tractors, trucks, fertilizer, pesticides, etc.), the labor and expenses to put that tomato on the shelf and complete your transaction, the costs of the tomatoes that went bad on the shelf or in transit, the taxes that every party paid from those transactions and much more.

The farmer is a business owner. The truck drivers were either employees of a business or owner/operators who own their own truck and business. And so was the grocery store owner, whether it’s a mom and pop store or a corporation.

Every single business owner in that chain of transactions paid a price to be a business owner. They took all the risk, such as flooding or drought destroying their crop, or spent money mitigating that risk, (buying insurance, for example). They poured untold time and money getting to the position of operating a viable business. That farmer has their name on the line for millions of dollars of equipment and land. The truck drivers are trying to deliver your food while juggling fuel costs that have hammered their profits. Grocery store owners are trying to hire and retain enough employees to keep their stores running.

Every business that took part in that transaction was started and owned by a business owner. If it was a privately owned business, the owner(s) has a name and face. If it’s a publicly held business, it has numerous shareholders (if your 401(k) holds that business, then you are one of the many owners) but was a small business an owner grew before taking it public. America’s economy is driven by small business owners. According to the Small Business Administration, two-thirds of business owners start their business from scratch (as opposed to purchasing or inheriting). Over 50% of small businesses fail in their first year. Roughly half of America’s workforce and economic activity comes from small businesses.

When Democrats accuse small business owners of not paying their employees enough, being exploitive, not providing enough paid leave, and other demands, they are attacking the small business owners throughout our community that provide most of our community’s jobs, taxes and goods and services that make our lives better.

How does one become a successful business owner? Careful planning, failure and pain. Very few business owners get their money to start a business from an inheritance or “luck.” By listening to Democrats who’ve never owned a business, I suspect many think there is a magical business fairy that comes and endows all the fortunate business owners with all the luck and resources they need. Most business owners utilize their life savings, home equity and their personal guarantees to initially fund their business, and go without income for a substantial amount of time before their business becomes profitable, if it doesn’t go out of business first.

When big government lords over small business the way they have under Biden’s administration, it is going to have disastrous consequences. By forcing landlords to have no say in evicting tenants who are destroying their properties or not paying rent, while the landlord must pay the loan and expenses, how do you think this is going to end? Who is going to provide much needed rental property? Biden made the disastrous decision to weaponize OSHA against businesses, threatening massive fines against businesses that do not fire unvaccinated workers, including tens of thousands of health care workers and first responders. Who in their right mind thinks this is a good idea when those entities are already understaffed and we’re seeing the vaccines do not prevent the transmission of COVID and its numerous variants?

When you look at what has truly made America great, brought untold advances to the world through technology and ideas, created the unique idea of the American Dream to the world that has lifted the lives of millions of people and built America as a world power, the ability of anyone with the ideas for a business and the drive to make it happen, it has come because we have embraced the idea of business ownership. Why do Democrats demonize business owners at every opportunity?

Brad Kramer is a member of the Freeborn County Republican Party.