Archive for the ‘Small Business’ Category

Saying that Gov. Dayton failed deputy registrars is extreme understatement. Nonetheless, he’s already started blaming Republican politicians for his failures. Dave Orrick’s reporting lays things out nicely by saying “It’s all the result of the faulty launch of MNLARS, a new computer system launched over the summer to handle vehicle title and tab transactions. It was a mess and largely still is, say deputy registrars, as well as car dealers, insurance agents and untold numbers of regular folks who waited in long lines or ran up against any number of roadblocks in their attempts to transfer a title or some other previously routine transaction.”

Don Davis’s article highlighted how the DFL abandoned the registrars:

The Minnesota House has failed to override Gov. Mark Dayton’s veto of funding to reimburse local offices who struggled with the state’s new driver registration system.

It’s just the second attempted override in Dayton’s tenure. With just 79 House members voting to override Dayton on Sunday, it fell short of the required 90-vote margin. Most Democrats voted against overriding Dayton’s veto.
Dayton struck down the bill Saturday, saying lawmakers should have paired it with funding to fix MNLARS. That money is in a separate bill passed by the Legislature. MNLARS was plagued by problems since its summer launch. GOP Rep. Dave Baker says lawmakers owe it to deputy registrars to reimburse them for their extra costs due to problems with the system.

DFL members who voted for the bill initially voted to sustain Gov. Dayton’s veto. That means that they put Gov. Dayton’s vanity ahead of the registrar’s financial needs. Saying that Speaker Daudt was upset with Gov. Dayton is understatement. Watch Speaker Daudt’s body language during this press availability:

About 12:25 into the press availability, Speaker Daudt spoke to the registrars bill, saying “Well, the deputy registrar bill, we are extremely disappointed that the Governor vetoed that bill. Even in his veto letter, he said that “I support this money for the deputy registrars. Confusing. Again, he keeps saying ‘send me a bill — an individual bill all by itself — a standalone bill’ and he vetoes it anyway. In reality, this bill had 101 votes going out of the House. I think we’re going to find out tonight if Democrats stand behind making these deputy registrars whole for the losses that have been incurred by the disaster called MNLARS and I hope that Democrats will stand with Republicans tonight behind these deputy registrars instead of standing behind this governor who has literally gone back on his word to these people.”

In his own press availability, Gov. Dayton said that he’d only sign the deputy registrars’ bill if it included ‘the other $33,000,000’ needed to fix MNLARS. Republicans told him consistently that they weren’t willing to write him a blank check, then hope that his IT team would fix MNLARS over the summer. Writing this incompetent governor a blank check with the belief that he’d fix that system isn’t just insane. It’s stupid. Why trust a governor with Gov. Dayton’s legacy of mishaps and mistakes and who can’t be held accountable now that he’s officially a lame duck?

When some of these deputy registrars go out of business or lose their homes, I hope they remember who stood with them and who abandoned them. Gov. Dayton vetoed the bill but DFL legislators abandoned them. DFL legislators supported their governor rather than supporting their constituents.

I hope these deputy registrars and their families remember that the DFL preached that they’re for the little guy — until their governor needs their votes. When they walk into the voting booth, I hope they feel like this:

Then I hope they vote for the people who will support them when it matters. They’re known as Republicans.

After reading this article, I thought that this was another instance of regulators running wild. First, let’s establish what happened.

According to the article, it “started in February with some bicycle wheels under a slide, right where they were supposed to be. “They were tucked underneath the slide in my front yard so the kids could access them, because they do things like experiment with physics and roll them down the hill,” Giuliani said. It ended with the first correction orders she had received in 17 years of providing family child care. On top of the 55-hour weeks, the need to pursue training and do paperwork outside of that window and the emotional heft of helping children grow, there’s now a green letter posted at the entrance to Giuliani’s home, where it will echo her faults until 2019.”

Seriously? This is proof that regulators either have too much time on their hands or they have a God complex. The other possibility is that this regulator is trying to pay in-home child care providers for humiliating the union by rejecting union representation. Whatever the regulator’s motivation, this isn’t acceptable. Here’s the ‘scene of the crime’:

That certainly looks dangerous. It’s a good thing that regulators wrote Giuliani up for being a threat to the children she takes care of.

Seriously, what’s required is a culture change amongst regulators. There’s no doubt that Minnesota is overregulated. That’s why companies have either left Minnesota or they’ve expanded elsewhere. That’s why Minnesota will lose a congressional district in the next round of reapportionment in 2021. It’s that simple.

“Guilty until proven innocent,” testified Julie Seidel, membership director of the Minnesota Association of Child Care Professionals, who added the regulatory environment is “burdensome and often unattainable … and is discouraging providers from continuing child care.”

It isn’t just that laws need to be rewritten. It’s that a total culture change is required. Common sense rules have been replaced by God-like declarations. Rather than just writing Ms. Giuliani a fix-it ticket, the regulator insisted on making an example of her.

County licensors also will be required to get additional training on licensing standards, with the goal of shifting from punitive to more constructive and educational licensing inspections. Giuliani countered that’s like “sending a bully at school to sensitivity training and expecting that because they have 90 minutes of training they’re not going to go back and do what they did before.”

It’d be better to just throw out the people who’ve abused their power.

It’s easier to meet someone who’s better off as a result of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act than the media would have us believe. For instance, Ashley is a big winner as a result of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

According to the analysts at The Tax Foundation, “Ashley is a single mom and owns her own business. This year her successful business will make $60,000. Ashley is very thankful for her mom, who cares for her one son, Jackson, when she is working many long hours, even on nights and weekends, as a small business owner. Without the tax reform law, Ashley takes $8,330 in personal exemptions and a standard Head-of-Household deduction of $9,550. This leaves her with a taxable income of $42,150. At her income level, she would pay $5,642.50 in federal income taxes, except that she qualifies for a $1000 child tax credit, which brings her final bill to $4,642.50.”

Under the new tax law, Ashley will benefit in a few different ways. First, although personal exemptions are eliminated, Ashley’s standard deduction will increase to $18,000, nearly twice as much as before. Secondly, and of critical importance to small business owners like her, Ashley can now also deduct up to 20 percent of her income because her business is a pass-through entity, meaning her business income “passes through” to her as an individual. This means she deducts another $8,400 (or 20 percent of the $42,000 left after her standard deduction). This means Ashley has a total taxable income of $33,600. At her rate, this income would result in $3,760 in taxes before the child tax credit. Thirdly, Ashley also benefits from the doubling of the child tax credit from $1000 to $2000. This leaves her with a final tax liability of $1760. This means Ashley gets a tax cut of $2,882.50.

During the final debate on the bill, Chuck Schumer said “the middle class would only get a pittance.” Making $60,000 a year is certainly in the middle class. Saving almost $3,000 certainly isn’t a pittance. That’s a significant tax cut, one that I’m betting Ashley will certainly make good use of.

Tuesday night, Speaker Ryan was Bret Baier’s and Martha MacCallum’s guest for a townhall meeting in Herndon, Virginia. Specifically, the subject was the Tax Cut and Jobs Act. It would be fun watching him slice-and-dice Nancy Pelosi on the subject, though I’m certain she’d never participate in such a debate.

Ryan on how the tax cuts would help veterans:

Ryan on small business growth:

(Notice the specificity of his response.)
Ryan on the need to grow the economy:

Thus far, the Democrats’ economic plan is to criticize the Republican plan. That’s the plan offered by Pelosi and Schumer. That’s bad enough. The Bernie/Warren plan is even worse. They want to raise taxes and drive companies overseas.

Do we want a vibrant economy led by robust small business investment or do we want the pathetic economic growth we had during the Obama administration? That’s a pretty easy answer for most people.

This op-ed is a fantastic illustration of what DFL regulatory corruption looks like. Every voter in Minnesota should understand what’s happening by DFL special interest groups in the hope of killing mining.

In the op-ed, Steve Giorgi, the executive director of the Range Association of Municipalities & Schools, aka RAMS, wrote “Commissioner John Linc Stine and his staff at the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) announced this week that they will commence with rulemaking hearings across the state on the new proposed rules for limits on Sulfate standards to protect wild rice.” Later in the op-ed, Giorgi wrote “During the last legislative session, Rep. Rob Ecklund was successful in passing legislation that delayed the implementation of any new wild rice/sulfate standards until January of 2019, allowing the MPCA and all Minnesotans to get the results of a study being conducted on the cost implications of a new standard and enforcement of that standard.”

This is what a corrupt regulatory system looks like. The business getting regulated has no assurance that they’ll get the required permits if they follow the stated procedures. (Whatever happened to Bill Clinton’s saying that “if you work hard and play by the rules, you’ll be rewarded with a good life for yourself and a better chance for your children“?) Based on the Dayton administration’s actions, the hard-working people of the Iron Range will get shafted even if they work hard and play by the rules. Then there’s this:

Finding funding for $5 to $10 million dollar treatment plant expansions, along with increased annual operating costs, and then the nightmare of trying to dispose of the brine that is produced by the reverse osmosis treatment, will put most small communities into bankruptcy.

At what point will this DFL administration admit that the regulations they’re thinking about will bankrupt the state? The law was passed and signed into law. PolyMet will be forced by law into playing by the rules. Unless the metro DFL wants to just admit that they want to stop mining altogether, which they’ll deny in public but admit to in private, this regulatory system needs to be scrapped.

I’m not talking about abolishing all regulations. I’m advocating for regulations that protect the water without buying the special interests’ BS. This video is intended to present the MPCA, the regulators on the wild rice standards, as reasonable and business-friendly: That’s intentional. The key difference between the Grede project and the wild rice standards is that the special interests don’t care about Grede. They’re focused on shutting down mining.

It’s indisputable that the metro DFL, especially politicians like John Marty and Al Franken, want to prevent new mining projects from getting permitted. It’s time to throw out the current regulatory system and replace it with a system that’s both business-friendly and that protects the environment. There’s no disputing the fact that the current system is hostile to both businesses and rural Minnesota.

Technorati: Wild Rice Regulations, Mark Dayton, PolyMet, Mining, Iron Range, Special Interests, Jon Linc-Stine, MPCA, DFL, Small Businesses

When I read this story, I was stunned. According to the story, the “Minnesota Department of Agriculture (MDA) awarded Minnesota Halal Meat & Grocery, 205 East St. Germain Street, $15,308.72 through the Good Food Access Program (GFAP). The store’s owner, Badal Aden Ali, says the store plans to install a dairy cooler, walk-in freezer, produce display case, and shelving. Ali says the grant funds will help address the needs of many of St. Cloud’s refugees and immigrants.”

Later in the article, we’re told that a “total of $150,000 in grant funds has been awarded to projects to purchase equipment and make physical improvements, increasing access to affordable, nutritious, and culturally appropriate foods in underserved and low- and moderate-income communities.”

What I’d like to know is how many similar programs exist within the Human Services and Minnesota Department of Agriculture budgets? How much taxpayer money gets spent each biennium to buy votes? This “store” is less than a mile away from my house. It’s a little hell-hole. It’s been that way since I was in grade school. (I started high school in 1970.)

Before anyone accuses me of being biased against refugees, my position is that I’m opposed to each of these grants.

I’m told that the theory behind these grants exist because the businesses can’t afford the loan to buy the equipment they’ll purchase with this grant money. If these businesses are on that shaky of ground, they should be allowed to fail.

Technorati: Crony Capitalism, Corporate Welfare, Minnesota Department of Agriculture, Minnesota Halal Meats

A Taxing Thought on the Minimum Wage
By Speed Gibson
July 14, 2017

You may remember how a Stillwater restaurant added a “minimum wage fee” to their tabs in 2014, in response to a 75 cent increase in the Minnesota minimum wage. Liberals, amazed that the owners didn’t just draw on their assumed millions stashed under the floorboards, said they should just raise prices if need be, not play politics. Conservatives like me cheered for a business willing to push back with what liberals hate most: the truth. And then I realized that there was a greater point being made here, intended or not. As an added, involuntary, cost to a business, the requirement to pay above market minimum wages is a tax.

Albert Einstein’s two great theories largely sprang from his ideas of equivalence. An astronaut in a rocket accelerating at 1 G in free space experiences the same effects as another still sitting on the launch pad on Earth. Gravity, he thought, must also be some form of acceleration, hence his General Theory of Relativity.

So, is there an equivalent tax to mandated minimum wages? Let’s take some full-time employees making $10 an hour. Assuming none are subsequently laid off, the new law takes effect and now they make $15 an hour. Each makes an additional $200 a week, or equivalently $200 a week now leaves the owner’s cash register. No additional work was performed. The money simply moved from the owner to the employee.

But a tax law could equivalently demand that the $200 “shortfall” be sent to St. Paul, then distributed to the employee via a refundable income tax credit based on the $400 paid and reported. Either way, the owner, employee and State checking account balances all read the same afterward.

I therefore conclude, if the minimum wage looks like a tax and acts like a tax and is compulsory like a tax – it’s a tax, with one remaining difference to now resolve: display that tax on the receipt like the courageous Stillwater restaurant owners did.

Technorati: Minimum Wage, Push for $15, Tax Increase, Albert Einstein, Democrats

This article is filled with proof that socialism doesn’t work. Further, it demolishes a key part of the Democrats’ economic message. It says “New research, conducted by economists at the University of Washington, shows that the $13 minimum wage has led to “steep declines in employment for low-wage workers and a drop in hours for those who kept their jobs. Crucially, the negative impact of lost jobs and hours more than offset the benefits of higher wages; on average, low-wage workers earned $125 per month less because of the higher wage.”

This isn’t surprising. Artificially inflating wages hurts people because businesses have to make a profit. When the government makes it more difficult through higher taxes or higher wages, businesses will adapt. The easiest way to do that is employ fewer people.

Later, it’s reported that “The Minneapolis city council will vote on Friday, June 30th at 9:30 am to increase the city’s minimum wage to $10.00 starting on July 1, 2018. By July 1, 2022, every worker in Minneapolis will be paid at least $15 per hour as voted on by the current Minneapolis City Council. One of their stated reasons for doing so is to help Minneapolis employees deal with “rising inflation” which, had any of them bothered to look, has been at 1.2% in 2016 and 0% in 2015. It is also important to note that every person who works at least two hours in any workweek while in the city of Minneapolis will be considered a Minneapolis employee and subject to these ever-increasing minimum wages.”

Why would companies start businesses in Minneapolis? They’d be foolish to. I suspect that companies that are part of the hospitality industry won’t start up there unless they get special concessions.

When I spotted this article announcing the passing of Dick Bernick, it made me sad. It isn’t because I knew him for a long time, though I wish I had known Dick’s family longer.

When famous people pass away, it’s often said that they were pillars of their community. Dick Bernick wasn’t just a pillar of this community. It’s that, if you looked in a dictionary for the definition of the term ‘good corporate citizen’, it would’ve been entirely fitting to find Dick’s picture there instead of words.

In the article, St. Cloud Mayor Dave Kleis said “He was very upbeat. He just had all this energy and just always had a smile. I don’t think I’ve ever talked to Dick where he wasn’t smiling a big smile.” I can vouch for that. Though I didn’t know Dick that long compared with others, the times I did interact with him, he was constantly smiling. This picture was typical:

The thing that should be known about the Bernick family business is that they, like Coborn’s Supermarkets, as they were called at the time, gave many young people their first jobs in St. Cloud. Bernick’s helped teach a generation of St. Cloud youth the importance of a strong work ethic and reliability. It isn’t overstatement to say that Bernick’s taught them the tools to prosper.

It isn’t overstatement to say that Dick was a force for good in St. Cloud. The company that he took over in the 1950s is now in the steady hands of his family.

Dick Bernick is survived by Lila, his wife of 67 years, “five children and 11 grandchildren.” Here’s hoping that they’re feeling the impact of the prayers and well wishes of their many friends.

One of the major highlights of CNN’s townhall meeting with Speaker Ryan at George Washington University came during the question of the night. That’s when Speaker Ryan announced that the House would repeal the ACA and pass the Republican replacement “at the same time, and in some cases in the same bill.” Speaker Ryan continued, saying “So we want to advance repealing this law with its replacement at the same time.”

The first person to ask a question of Speaker Ryan was a small business owner named Jeff Jeans, who identified himself as a former Republican and a cancer survivor. Jeans told Speaker Ryan “Just like you, I was opposed to the Affordable Care Act. When it was passed, I told my wife we would close our business before I’d comply with this law. Then, at 49, I was given 6 weeks to live and with a very curable type of cancer. We offered 3 times the cost of my treatments, which was rejected. They required an insurance card. Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, I’m standing here alive. Being both a small business person and a person with pre-existing conditions, I rely on the Affordable Care Act to purchase my own insurance. Why would you repeal the Affordable Care Act without a replacement?”

Ryan replied “We wouldn’t do that. We want to replace it with something better. … We believe that state high risk pools are a smarter way of guaranteeing coverage for people with pre-existing conditions. We had a really good one in Wisconsin. Utah had a really great one. I was talking with a congresswoman from Washington today who was telling me how good their high risk pool is. What I mean when I say this is that about 8% of all the people less than 65 years of age have that type of pre-existing condition. … We don’t want people to go poor or go bankrupt because this thing happens to them so we obviously want a system where they can get affordable coverage without going bankrupt when they get sick. But we can do that without destroying the rest of the health care system for everybody else. That’s the point I’m trying to make. What we should have done is fix what was broken in health care without breaking what was working with health care and that’s what Obamacare unfortunately did.”

Here’s the video of that exchange:

It’s worth noting that Minnesota had a high risk pool, too, which was also working well until the ACA destroyed it. In 2007, before then-Sen. Obama was elected president, Minnesota boasted that 92.8% of its citizens were insured. Of those that didn’t have health insurance, more than half were eligible for some sort of taxpayer-subsidized health insurance. Had those people gotten signed up, Minnesota’s insured rate would’ve exceeded 97%, which would’ve been better than anything that the ACA could ever hope to accomplish.

What’s particularly insulting and infuriating is the fact that Democrats know the Republicans’ plans. It’s infuriating because Ryan’s plan has been out there for months. If there’s anything certain about Speaker Ryan, it’s that he’s a policy junkie in the best sense of the word. He lives to write great legislation.

Speaker Ryan said that he didn’t have a specific date that he’d put on repealing and replacing the ACA, though he told Jake Tapper that he thinks it will happen in President Trump’s first 100 days.

If that happens, you’ll see the economy take off because Obamacare is sucking the incentive out of growing small businesses. Watch the entire video. It’s educational and enlightening.

Technorati: Paul Ryan, Town Hall Meeting, George Washington University, Affordable Care Act, High Risk Pools, Jeff Jeans, Small Businesses, Republicans, Jake Tapper, CNN