Come with me on a short trip. From a Syracuse repair shop to a tent in the Revolutionary War. And then to a Connecticut hotel.
A woman from Syracuse sends a simple plea to me. It brings to mind George Washington. As well as national politician George McGovern.
In her letter she explains that she owns a small business in North Syracuse. A collision repair shop. She writes after she reads my column about how out of touch our politicians are. How they inflict uncertainty and difficulties upon business operators.
“Talk about laws we have to follow!’ she writes. “It is mind blowing how lawmakers, supposedly intelligent folks, cannot see the horrible impact their decisions have on people, especially business owners. As one of my neighbors pointed out to a local official: If he were to go up and down the road we are on, he would see that most of these small businesses (like mine) employ under ten people, not fifty.
“Small business laws have huge impacts on businesses our size. They create expenses that will eventually bury us. (The official never went down the road to talk to anyone, by the way.)”
Her words echo those of George Washington. When he leads the revolutionary army against the British he writes fifteen times to the Continental Congress meeting in Philadelphia. He gets no replies. Finally he asks “Is anybody there? Does anybody care?”
That congress is filled with men who do not listen to what Washington writes. Because of that, they nearly bungle the war for independence.
Our politicians do not listen today to the thoughts of the businesswoman in Syracuse. Nor to the laments of hundreds of thousands of business owners. At every level of government they burden businesses with more taxes. And more regulations. And more rules and conditions. Business owners complain endlessly about this burden. In one way or another they ask of the legislatures that rule them, “Is anybody there? Does anybody care?”
I write this in the present tense for a simple reason: The problems of George Washington’s times exist as much today as then. You realize this when you know he writes also of the burdens government lays unnecessarily upon men and women. He marvels that they have the patience to put up with them.
