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A gloomy mood for businesses

07/14/2010

Ruston Daily Leader
Chris Butler, Reporter
07-14-2010

“Is there any hope that things are going to get better?”

That was the perennial question asked at least three times of U.S. Rep. Rodney Alexander (R-LA) at a meeting last week of the Ruston Kiwanis Club.

Some of these people were businessmen whose very livelihoods are threatened by an ever-expanding federal government, not to mention the policies of the sitting U.S. president.

Many of these business owners are honest and want to keep as many of their current employees as possible — it isn’t unreasonable to assume they want to expand their businesses and employ even more people in Lincoln Parish.

Among the things that threaten their ability to create future prosperity for other people:

• The reinstatement of the federal death tax, which goes back into effect next year for the first time since 2003 and taxes the estates of people who make $1 million or more when they die.

As Alexander put it:

“Some people think that $1 million is a lot of money, but not to a lot of equipment owners, farmers or small business owners. A 55 percent tax is outrageous,” Alexander said.

• Alexander has been taking calls from tanning salon operators who complained about their business taxes going up an additional 10 percent to pay for the president’s new health care law, which requires every individual in the country to have health insurance.

Joseph Levy, vice president of the International Smart Tan Network, which has 3,000 member salons, told CNN.com that many tanning salons, perhaps as many as 1,000, will go out of business because of this tax to fund health care for every single U.S. citizen.

Levy expects 9,000 people will lose their jobs because employers can’t pay these higher taxes and still keep some of their employees.

• One Ruston businessman who works in the insurance industry said it was his expert opinion that small-group insurance companies will no longer be able to work with companies that have fewer than 200 employees because of new health care regulations.

Alexander said that the health care legislation debate earlier this year “was a nightmare,” especially considering that many congressman and senators voted in favor of legislation that they never even bothered to read.

“The new health care law was shoved down the throats of people. We were there. We were in the mix, and we don’t know all of what is in this law,” Alexander said.

• Alexander was vexed about a certain mentality among many elite politicians in Washington D.C.

“A man and a woman work hard and are frugal. They ought to be able to leave it to whom they want to leave it without the federal government taking most of it. I serve with men and women in Congress who don’t think you ought to have the right to leave your children or your grandchildren anything because that might give them some advantage over some child that didn’t have parents that left them something. Every child ought to start at zero, they believe.

“I don’t understand that. I won’t ever accept that theory of living. That’s what we have to deal with today. We have to have bottom lips today. We just have to bite our bottom lips and go on about our business,” Alexander said.

Hopefully the federal government won’t tax anyone for biting themselves.

The attack on prosperity in this nation continues. Things will improve at some point. Alexander ended the meeting with a quote telling everyone to feel optimistic.

“There’s always hope, somehow, somewhere,” Alexander said.