DECLARATION OF OUR DEPENDENCE

"Though I've belted you and flayed you,
By the livin' Gawd that made you,
You’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din!"


The fourth of July is a celebration of the day our country was born. We were like an infant, kicking and screaming our way into the world. 231 years later and we are nothing like what our fore fathers had envisioned. Try to open a business in Maine and you will see what I mean.

Licenses, mandates, regulations, restrictions, and whatever else the city, county, state or federal government wants to through in the way is killing the entrepreneurial spirit of our nation. Tree hugger groups try to stop everything, from the construction of highways to the building of tool sheds just to protect snails and rats. Insurance companies lobby to make insurance coverage mandatory and then price it out of the reach of the small business person. Handicap lobbies push for the passage of laws that force up construction expenses and make building costs prohibitive for the common person. City and town governments pass zoning laws that limit the growth of businesses or ban them altogether. All of this is more busy work for lawyers and adds to set-up costs.

When I opened my first business around 1980, I was fortunate enough to get a lot of good advice from people who had been in the business for years. I opened a 35 seat diner on the working waterfront. I was 23 years old and ready to do whatever it took to succeed. My brother and I worked from 2:30 in the morning until 3:30 in the afternoon, seven days a week. I didn’t take a pay check for the first year, instead my wife and I lived off her teaching salary and we ate leftovers from the restaurant. I saved as much money as I could because I knew at some point I would have to move and I wanted to have the cash to do it. I was in for a rude awakening that first year when I had to pay Uncle Sam $10,000.00 in taxes. I was ignorant to the tax system and thought that if I set the money aside and didn’t take it as income, I wouldn’t have to pay as much in taxes on it.

I didn’t realize beforehand just how much money the government took from businesses every month. On the 15th of every month I sent a couple thousand dollars to the feds for payroll taxes and a couple thousand to the state for sales tax. I paid quarterly taxes and license fees and for workers compensation insurance because the government mandated it; thousands and thousands of dollars every year from a 35 seat diner. Was this what our fore fathers had envisioned for us; to be slaves to government, a government that has become so big it has to keep making new laws so all of it's employees will have something to do? There are so many agencies at all levels of government now that people don’t even know where to begin when opening a business. With so many people working for agencies forcing everyone to follow so many regulations, it becomes a maze of confusion and frustration when a person wants to begin a new business or even expand an existing one. It can take months to open a small business and the people that are enforcing all the laws and regulations seem to think business people have bales of money and can just wait to become operational.

A good friend of mine who lives in Cancun Mexico was recently in Maine visiting. I talked to him about the business atmosphere where he now lives. He told me the story of an acquaintance of his that owns a store in a neighborhood in Cancun. He said it was a nice neighborhood, very residential and the store looked a little out of place there but it did a thriving business because the people in the neighborhood appreciated how close in proximity to their homes it was. One day his friend decided to sell liquor in his store. He didn’t have to get a license or even discuss his idea with any government officials, instead, he bought cases of liquor and started selling it; end of story. This whole scenario seems almost unreal to me and it is in today’s America.

Our country is getting very close to losing its true meaning. We still have our freedoms but they are becoming less and less with more and more restrictions on them. The basic idea behind our country was that we would be free to make our lives and our livings, to the best of our abilities and with as few restrictions on them as possible. We are supposed to be able to pursue happiness, protected by our government to do so, but instead the government has become the biggest single road block to that pursuit and has become fat at the cost of every American’s labors, fortunes and freedoms.

I will vote in the next presidential election for the man or woman that not only doesn’t propose any new laws but also wants to start eliminating some of the old ones. Instead of proposing more government with more jurisdictions over our lives, let’s get back to our roots, away from government and free to pursue happiness.