By Jerry Schumacher
Small-business owners are holding their breath to see what the latest crop of legislators will do to them.
History has proven that since the majority of California’s legislators have never signed the front of a check, the assault on small business will continue. Sadly, the majority of our Sacramento leaders have no idea what kind of fatal blow new and unexpected costs,be they taxes, levies, assessments, fees,is to small-business owners and the people they employ.
Most small businesses have limited revenue and razor-thin profits. Every month, every pay period, once a small business owner has paid what is due for administration, payroll, overhead, property, utilities, permits, inventory, and, yes, taxes, he or she is left with little, if anything, for his or her own livelihood or other unanticipated future needs.
Keep in mind that small businesses are the single largest contributor to jobs and the economy, not only in California, but throughout the nation. There are more than 3.5 million small businesses that employ approximately 7 million people in California.
Small-business owners realize that the prognosis for our multibillion dollar state budget deficit is not pretty. Difficult decisions will have to be made, no doubt.
But we elected our state leaders with the hope and expectation that they would do what is fiscally and ethically right, as well as treat government like a business. We have held out hope, time and again, that they would make reasonable decisions that spend “stakeholder” (yes, taxpayer) money honestly and appropriately, plan wisely for the future and make difficult but important decisions during difficult times to ensure survival,in short, to behave and manage the state like a business, not a bureaucracy.
Sadly, our leaders have chosen to take the easy way out: calling upon small businesses and taxpayers to pay for their haphazard behavior. Some bailout, indeed.
We hope,and pray,that history does not repeat itself and that this newest bunch of “public servants” will truly demonstrate that they mean business,small business.
Schumacher is vice president of sales at US Technical, an aviation consulting company in Fullerton.
