The anti-capitalist mentality of Clintonomics - Editorial

Business Horizons, March-April, 1994 by Ralph R. Reiland, Sarah J. McCarthy

As employers arguing in our own behalf, we are dismissed by this administration as "special interests" or "defenders of the status quo" or "the forces of greed." it is a perverse politics that turns mom-and-pop proprietors into robber barons. it is politics that doesn't produce confidence in government or faith that one's business can survive in such a hostile environment. This anti-business bias of the government policymakers in Washington has created an adversarial and destructive relationship between the government and those who create the jobs.

George McGovern laments that after his experience in the bed-and-breakfast business he realizes that laws and regulations pertaining to small business are actually hurting the lower-wage workers whom he had tried to help during his entire political career. With his Stratford Inn in bankruptcy, McGovern now says:

In retrospect, I wish I had known more about the hazards and difficulties of such a business.... I wish that during the years I was in public office I had this firsthand experience about the difficulties business people face every day. That knowledge would have made me a better Senator and a more understanding presidential contender... To create job opportunities, we need entrepreneurs who will risk their capital against an expected payoff. Too often, however, public policy does not consider whether we are choking off those opportunities.

During the 1992 campaign, Ross Perot said that the government should stop breaking the legs of our businesses. Paul Tsongas, too, warned Bill Clinton that one cannot love jobs and hate employers. Maybe it's not actually hate - perhaps it's closer to mistrust. Increasingly, the government has usurped our decision-making power over who and how we hire and fire, who can be promoted, who can have a tax-deferred pension, and who obtains sick leave. They are even micromanaging the social environment, the jokes told, and the number of times someone can ask for a date before it turns into a federal case.

If Congress seriously wanted to upgrade workplace behavior they could educate, mediate, and arbitrate rather than unleash lawyers armed with $300,000 lawsuits that crush businesses. It seems, however, that Congress doesn't seek to educate or provide managerial assistance when a lawsuit will do.

Too often, well-intentioned government mandates trickle down to create economic failure and harm the very people they're supposed to help. Restaurants, for example, usually consist of a small core group of full-time workers and an ever-changing group of part-timers who work as while attending college or until they land their "real job." Though teachers and other professionals are entitled to 401-K and 403-B retirement plans, workers at our restaurant are excluded from such advantages. The law mandates that if 401-Ks are available to anyone at a business, they must be available to all. So, because we can't afford contributions for all of our employees, we aren't permitted to provide them for the five or ten of our longtime and hardest-working employees. The full-timers who have worked at the restaurant for more than a decade should enjoy the same tax-deferred saving plans that are available to first-year teachers, but they are victims of this one-size-fits-all government mentality on benefits.