For some reason, small business associations too often still spout Sam Walton propaganda. As though small business and big, transnational corporations are on the same team, while workers, environmentalists, and consumer advocates are our opponents.
This is swill. We don't believe in the "worker vs. business" model. We know that demand
stimulates business and jobs, and only decently-paid workers generate demand.
We don't want fewer regulations and stingier wages and lower taxes.
We want subsidies and tax breaks shifted from big, unscrupulous corporations to the small, salt-of-the-earth businesses that actually provide jobs for Americans, don't pollute, and are good corporate citizens. We'd like graduated operating fees, and graduated tax assistance for high-dollar regulations, so we can get on our feet.
We'd like a less punitive and inaccessible loan process. We want loopholes closed for big business. We want anti-trust laws back, and enforced. We want single-payer health care, and until then, we want help getting health care for ourselves and our employees, until we can get some momentum. We want Citizens United overturned. We want publicly-funded elections. We want the American dream back, and to stand beside our union and environmentalist friends, against the abuses of Wall Street, K-Street, economic globalization, and the revolving door.
We want more small business owners to ask: why should big businesses get no-bid, cost-plus contracts, huge subsidies and tax breaks, when they make record profits, have formed a monopoly, undercut our prices, offshore jobs and onshore cheap or undocumented labor, pollute people out of their jobs, homes and health, hide money in Cayman accounts and hire slick lawyers to avoid most or all of their taxes and make us pick up the slack?
We know the richest of the rich don't create jobs. They don't pay taxes, though they use our infrastructure to sell their shady wares. They hide and hoard their money. They commission near-slave labor overseas, or illegally in this country. They gamble with our savings and our pensions. They start wars, and promote corporate terrorism. They flout domestic and international law, because they believe they are the law. They lie, cheat and steal. They make taxpayers clean up their exhorbitant messes. They buy influence. They need to be reigned in.
They don't need or deserve support from American citizens, because they take far, far more than they give.
We small business owners are the backbone of America. We want to become strong enough to hire you, and to pay you enough that you and your family can live with dignity. We don't need to be filthy rich--we just want to be able to have a decent home, health care, and reasonable time to bond and play. Just like you. We know people--workers and customers alike--are our best resource and promise of success. We know we all must invest in people to get some return. We know we can't thrive without a thriving Middle Class. We know sick and injured people with no health care don't make for productive citizens. We know people who've been foreclosed on and cheated out of their homes don't have a strong foundation from which to lend their talents.
We want everyone who depends on a paycheck, and all who struggle to make payroll all on the same side, marching together against corruption, against corporate anarchy, and for the Middle Class.
Then we will truly move mountains.