MOM&POP vs. the DREAMBUSTERS

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Sept 13, 1999 | by Jim DeMint

The Small Business Revolt Against Big Government

The authors of a new book on government regulation put the issue plainly: With every vote, lawmakers determine the scope of our freedoms.

In Mom & Pop vs. The Dreambusters: The Small Business Revolt Against Big Government (McGrawHill, $24.99, 183 pp), Ralph Reiland and Sarah McCarthy have unearthed the real debate reverberating in the halls of Congress: Who is going to control our lives, us or the government? The authors document the frustrations small-business owners express every day about overly intrusive government -- excessive taxation, red tape, onerous regulations and crazy lawsuits can turn the American Dream of owning a business into a nightmare.

Reiland and McCarthy bring to their analysis their own experience of running a small business, as well as extensive experience in academia. In addition to being the co-owner of Amel's Restaurant in Pittsburgh, Reiland is a weekly columnist at the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, a contributing writer at American Enterprise magazine and an associate professor of economics at Robert Morris College. McCarthy, a former teacher, was the chef/manager at Amel's for 12 years and now is a contributing editor at Liberty magazine and a columnist for online publications WorldNetDaily and the Common Conservative.

Mom & Pop vs. the Dreambusters explains the key role of the small-business community in the political earthquake of 1994 that turned control of Congress over to the GOP for the first time in a generation. "Small-business issues and small-business people made the difference," declared House Speaker Newt Gingrich in 1996. It began in 1994 when millions of small-business people, outraged by the Clinton administration's health-care reform plan, became energized as never before. They simply had had enough and were determined not to take it anymore from a government that so often seems at odds with common sense, indifferent to ordinary people and remote from the democratic process.

Reiland and McCarthy clearly expose the harebrained -- and often downright cruel-- agenda of an intellectual and bureaucratic elite in government that produced this political earthquake. For example, the authors describe a 1993 visit to Capitol Hill by Hillary Rodham Clinton. Asked by Virginia Democratic Rep. Norman Sisisky what could be done to ease the burden of her health-care mandates on small businesses, the first lady responded in her best let-'em-eat-cake style, "I can't go out and save every undercapitalized entrepreneur in America." The message from central planning, say the authors, was loud and clear: "Go out of business if you can't pay for our vision."

But the authors also write about ordinary citizens such as Andrew Hwang, the Korean-American entrepreneur in Chicago who threw in the towel in his janitorial business after spending $200,000 in legal bills and eight years in court with government regulators. Hwang's crime? Lack of workplace diversity -- he employed too many Koreans.

At a recent Republican conference in Williamsburg, Va., I was asked to share my thoughts on the communication gap that exists between Congress and the American people. I drew for my colleagues a picture of a circle with a line drawn down the middle. The circle represented the American people divided over the role of government. One half of Americans, I explained, believe in more freedom, less government and lower taxes. The other half believes in more security, a larger government and more spending.

My comments mirrored those presented by Reiland and McCarthy. Lawmakers are forcing the American people to choose between freedom and security. The chaos associated with high-school shootings and financial collapses cause many to trade their freedom for more security. Washington acts upon people's fear to further confiscate people's independence. Indeed, the gravest threat facing our country today is from those who promise security in exchange for freedom -- in exchange for more of our money and more control of our lives. Some of those serving in government act as if they were elected to manage our lives.

I believe we were elected to provide a framework of freedom so Americans can manage their own lives. And while we were elected to provide a safety net for those in need when families, communities and states are unable to help, the need for this safety net does not require the confiscation of our freedoms. We must remember that in America, we are most secure when we are most free ... when we are in control of our own lives.

I agree with the authors that the challenge to a Republican-led Congress is to unharness the regulations and tax burdens and usher in a new era of entrepreneurship. That is why many of us on Capitol Hill are working to restore the original American axiom as detailed by Reiland and McCarthy, the principle that freedom flows from restraints on government, not from restraints on community.

In addition, we must begin to identify the real debate in Congress, understand its consequences and then educate the American people. They must understand that we can secure the future for every American by making sure dollars, decisions and freedom stay in the hands of local people.