What a joke and what a boldface liar. Cantor doesn't care about the common man or small business, even in his home district. While it is easy for him to thump his chest, stomp his feet and wave his flag to criticize Obama, the truth is Cantor has failed to protect small businesses, and even aided in creating job loss in his own state.
Many of you will remember small business owner Rick Krial. Krial had a small adult video store in Staunton, Va., a country town with a declining economy whose May 2009 unemployment percentage came in at 7 percent, the highest it has registered since 1994. While a town high in unemployment and low on thriving taxable businesses would appear to be welcoming to business, it wasn't. Instead, having a small business was a crime in Staunton, as a local conservative prosecutor ran Krial out of town and out of business on obscenity charges. In the end, after spending $150,000 on lawyers defending his right to open and run a business, Krial gave up.
Cantor did nothing.
Where was his "pro" small-business attitude then?
Take a look at the adult entertainment industry. Except for the big few — Hustler, Vivid, Wicked, Digital Playground, Rick's Cabaret — most are small businesses who would likely appreciate Cantor's pro small-business mantra of smaller taxes, less red tape and easy-to-navigate government. However, when Cantor says "pro small-business" he doesn't mean businesses in the adult industry.
This is an ongoing national problem. Take a look around.
In Washington state, as well as several others, businesses have opened up that fully utilize the law, having topless or seminude legal-age females serving coffee, offering a great employment opportunity for people who may otherwise be unemployed. What is the public's reaction to these new businesses? Protest and complaints over it from citizens who are too shallow to understand jobs are jobs, and tax revenue is tax revenue. While some would like to put churches on every corner, nothing is more killing to the finances or tax revenue of a community than a church, since they create no tax revenue.
Take a further look at the small town of Illiopolis, Ill. A typical small town smack central in the heart of the state. Illiopolis sports an unemployment rate of 8.8 percent, compared to the national average of about 6 percent, and since the year 2007, jobs in the Illiopolis area have decreased by 19 percent. The end result of this has been fewer jobs for the work force and vacant buildings. Yet when local developers wanted to spend money to open a gentlemen's club in a vacant building, they were rebuffed, harassed and denied by the county board of supervisors to the point they withdrew their application.
"I imagine the building will just sit there," said Michael Myers, an attorney representing the developers. "There's not going to be any tax revenues or jobs created."
It is much of the same story in Greensboro, N.C., a town reeling from unemployment and the downsizing of the textile industry. While businesses that have survived the economic downturn should be left free of harassment, one gentlemen's club, Sugar Bare Lost Dimensions, has become a target. With great pomp and circumstance, local police publicly announced the club is a nuisance that attracts crime. What they failed to mention is that the club is zoned into a crime-ridden part of town, through no fault of its own. This means the crime would exist regardless of the club's presence. Police also failed to mention that it is a well-known fact that during economic downturns, areas that are crime ridden have intensified incidents of crime.
Is Iowa recession proof? Any Iowa politician or citizen complaining about the recession should shut up and sit down. After all, the government of Dubuque, Iowa, spent $15,000 of taxpayer money to buy an adult club out and filed a $15,000 insurance claim. All in all, the strip club owner came out with $30,000 of taxpayer money. I guess that in Iowa they'd rather run out and buy businesses they don't like, rather than buy computers for schools.
In a time of a recession when the country is running in the red, all money is still green.
FreeSpeechRevolution.com was founded by Mike Dickinson. If you want to be involved, offer ideas or exercise your right to free speech and tell him you hate his ideas, email him at Mike@FreeSpeechRevolution.com.
