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My parents have owned a small business for 18 years. They have six employees and in that time have always provided health insurance. Until two years ago, they paid 100% of the premium. Then they asked them to contribute 10% of the premium — all but one employee acted like this was hugely unfair. This year, because of the new requirements of the Obamacare bill, premiums went up 600 percent. That’s not a type — many others in the franchise saw their rates go up even more. My parents could not sustain this and so they dropped coverage and instead contribute $500/month toward the individual health care plan or savings account of the employee’s choice.
Then they go home and see themselves villified by politicians who themselves have never had to meet a payroll.
July 25, 2011 @ 9:19 am
Unless the Congress can act favorably on something like “cut, cap and balance” soon, the outcome is inevitable. Those of us who own and operate businesses employing most of the American public will have to drastically reduce our costs, or go out of business. I own a civil engineering design company, and a heavy infrastructure construction company. I can outsource all of my engineering drafting and design over the internet to places like India, Pakistan, Indonesia, China and Japan in a heartbeat for about a tenth the cost of maintaining my engineering staff as full time employees. Being on the Mexican Border with Juarez, Mexico, I can just move my shop over there and save about 70% of my overhead and operating costs. My construction company leases all of our non-management employees and has done so for the last seven years. Just like Mr. Bryant, I can elect to “quit” at any time. If things don’t change for the positive in the next two years, I may just do so. America is in more danger, from within, than ever before. We can easily defeat any foreign threat to our country, but the danger lies within now.
July 25, 2011 @ 9:34 am
just want to mention that the perspicacious Ayn Rand half a century ago called environmentalism the “Anti-Industrial Revolution”
July 25, 2011 @ 9:35 am
I do not know how anyone has the guts to start or keep a business running under Obama. He has stopped economic growth and thrown away trillions. I lost my job(final nail in the coffin of my bosses business) due to the smoking law in Illinois. We had 22 feet tall ceilings in the steak house with smoke eaters. There was no way some one would even get second hand smoke in the non smoking area. My boss and those who smoked LOST a freedom. That is there agenda. Take it all away until you are a just a follower and not a leader. We must stop or there will be only government run business.
July 25, 2011 @ 9:37 am
[...] knuckle under to the knucklehead tyranny the United Soviet Socialist States of America has become, one way or another: My name’s Ronnie Bryant, and I’m a mine operator. I’ve been issued a [state] permit in the [...]
July 25, 2011 @ 9:44 am
Consider us shrugging. We are closing a 20 year medical practice. Go to the lawyers when you are sick. Have fun. The hardest part is leaving our loyal employees high and dry, but we can’t work anymore in Obama’s medical climate.
July 25, 2011 @ 9:45 am
[...] ‘I’m just quitting’: A scene right out of ‘Atlas Shrugged’ in Birmingham [...]
July 25, 2011 @ 10:02 am
I used to run a software development company that employed 19 people. I will never do that again.
July 25, 2011 @ 10:06 am
As someone who, according to President Obama, has “enough”, I believe many feel that I should garden for the rest of my life rather than start a new business and employ people.
Bryant’s story is very powerful. I hope that many people read this. It is happening all around the country.
July 25, 2011 @ 10:08 am
Wow! Absolutely outstanding article. This is journalism. Alphabet networks, watch and learn how it’s done.
Tex
July 25, 2011 @ 10:12 am
[...] David McElroy posts the story. [...]
July 25, 2011 @ 10:13 am
Along with 4 friends, I started a business in 1999 after we were laid off from our tech positions at a Fortune 100 company. We all participated in the process of starting up the business, including navigating the regulatory environment.
The first one dropped out 1 month into the project. I lasted about 6 months before realizing how badly the government didn’t want us to get going. Two others dropped out in the following 6 months. A dead web page is all that remains, so far as I can tell.
This business was a technology consulting business with zero environmental impact and very little chance (comparatively) of getting gratuitously sued or whatever. But it was just too hard in 1999. I can’t IMAGINE how difficult it must be TODAY, especially if you hire litigous employees and have anything that could be remotely construed as a possible environmental impact.
Today I am keeping my head down and furiously saving everything I can so that I can drop out of the workforce as early as possible. I’m stockpiling food and other necessities for what I view as an inevitable collapse of the current system. I’m keeping my exposure to “the system” to a minimum, and I’m hoping at some point to drop out of official circulation entirely.
First they came for the productive businesses….
July 25, 2011 @ 10:15 am
I haven’t quit yet but only because my businesses, crude oil production & agriculture, act as hedges against the inevitible crash towards which we seem to be irretrievably headed. As devastating as the regulatory state is to business (I spend upwards of 3/4 of my time on regulatory & tax compliance issues) it’s a sideshow compared to the economic problems we face.
July 25, 2011 @ 10:16 am
It’s worth noting here that Birmingham has one of the most massively corrupt city governments in the U.S… and the residents there keep voting them back in, with the full support of local media. Meanwhile, everyone in the area with an ounce of ambition, or even just the desire to not be a government dependent, has deserted the city for the Shelby County suburbs. And I think that this is what the remaining city residents want. Productive people just remind the parasites of all the ways in which they are deficient, so they demand more regulation and corruption. They picture themselves living in a work-free paradise in which everyone gets Hummers and big-screen TVs and crack provided by the government. If the checks got cut off, most of them would be dead within a week.
July 25, 2011 @ 10:23 am