THE ROOTS OF MY POLITICAL PASSION

 

In 1983 I worked as an engineer for a major Northwest timber company. The plant where I worked was in a company owned town. The down turn in the housing industry coupled with the environmentalist driven war on logging closed our plant. The listing of an owl on the endangered species list crushed an industry, before the predation of the owl by another invasive owl species became recognized as the culprit. My last responsibility was to conduct exit interviews with 125 employees to notify them of their termination and options. Many of the senior men also lived in company housing so they were losing both job and home. My own name was the last on my list for termination. Out of work I joined some others in my field to start a small manufacturing company. For 27 years we slowly grew the firm until we were making payroll for 107 employees and building machinery for a worldwide market. In 2008 the economic collapse and bursting of the housing bubble decimated our little company. We were forced to lay off 101 of our employees including ourselves in ownership. The remaining employees took voluntary pay and benefit cuts to help save the business. The following two years of economic chaos ruined or at least downsized most of our former customer base.

I have never been politically active beyond voting. Seeking to try to understand the predicament that the country was in I started studying contemporary and historical literature on the different concepts of government. I read President Obama’s books and everything from Mao’s little red book and the Communist Manifesto to Thomas Jefferson’s writings on the republican form of government. My views crystallized into those of an unapologetic free market conservative. I believed by the end of 2011 as I do today that the way back for America is for free market capitalists to get back in the fight and develop innovative products with market demand. The economic growth from business growth will supply the jobs we need as no government stimulus ever could.

I hear all of the political hacks with a pen or microphone droning on about how they will use tax dollars to fix the economy and make jobs. I can show any number of “Solyndra” type failures to illustrate why capital should never be government directed. Every businessman, unlike our politicians, knows that if he has the capital he will invest it to grow his business. Our American businesses fight every day to compete in the free markets around the world against untaxed and virtually unregulated offshore manufacturers. Taxes and the cost of complying with taxes and regulations put a very heavy hand on the scales tipping the market in the favor of foreign competition. Last year alone our government inflicted thousands of new regulations on American business hurting our ability to compete and grow new jobs.

Near the end of 2011 my business associates pooled our remaining capital and developed products aimed at food production and oil exploration. We have always been a manufacturer of custom designed machinery so the pivot was not as imposing a task for us as it might have been for others. I am proud to say that we have been successful in both markets and have been able to rehire about half of our work force. We made the turnaround without government aid using our own money and effort. Sadly the largest challenges we have faced have been caused by federal, state and local government. Permits for building on to our facility and manufacturing tractors with diesel engines have been hard to come by. We have, as a company, always provided health insurance for our employees until the downturn. The process of growing the workforce is stalled by the 50 person limit imposed by the Affordable Care Act. It is not possible to grow the business if we are forced to pay over twice as much for each employee’s health coverage as we were paying before the down turn. I am incredibly frustrated by actions of our own government working against the very job creation they bloviate about supporting. As a business man and engineer I can evaluate a market for product opportunities, design innovative products with market demand and capitalize the venture but I cannot win against oppressive government.

The jobs we need to have a real recovery are available America, but you, the voters, are going to need to help get the regulation nightmare under control and the tax man’s thieving hand out of the till.