Can anyone, yes anyone, name a common nationwide local gov't "unnecessary burden"?

[JanMichael]

You know ones that make starting small businesses hard.

Freezer and fridge temp regs? Food service rules? Poisoned much? Is liability insurance a problem?

Local zoning or other regulations? So what if you neighbor starts running a strip club out of her house, right?

Please someone give me one. Just one "unnecessary burden" that a President could impact. A bigger fish to fry might be better economic development or bank loan funding access for traditionally excluded groups - we should know who that is.

This particular issue has me baffled.

[Maedhros]

1. Here in Portland, there was some consternation about small business "street fees"

that were purportedly causing some restaurants and shops to close.

[JanMichael]

2. Nationwide is Portlandia? Wow. And I thought I was egotistic.

And I'd need to know a heck of lot more about "street fees" somehow closing shops and restaurants to agree or not.

[Maedhros]

3. I imagine most cities and townships have some kind of "street fee" for businesses.

And no need to be a dick about it.

[JanMichael]

5. Which covers cleanup and other maintenance and security in business districts I would gather.

And they are usually not very much. $25-200 a year from what I've seen. If that kills a restaurant it probably had a lot more reasons to die.

Are you talking about privilege licenses?

http://www.citizen-times.com/story/news/local/2014/05/22/business-license-tax-reform-cost-cities-revenue/9465699/

[Warren DeMontague]

14. You asked for an example, and they gave one.

Not sure why you need to snark off about "portlandia". I understand being jealous, of course. If I lived in New Jersey or some shit, I would be too.

[Sherman A1]

16. Hmmmmm

[phantom power]

4. The claim that govt is "in the way of business" is a conservative religious belief, not factual.

I will refer to the great Paul Krugman:

And in general: is dealing with these government agencies any worse than, say, dealing with the cable company?

The prejudice against government seems to have become free-floating, unattached to any actual experience.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002922480

[JanMichael]

7. It is that. We pay out our nose to the Duke Enrgy's and Comcasts and somehow think 10/m...

...for police and cleanup crews is wrecking our lives and don't hate the Dukes and Corpo criminals as much.

Decades of propaganda have made Americans dumb.

[arcane1]

6. If the local gov't is subsidizing a Walmart, that might make things difficult

Depending on the small business in question.

[JanMichael]

9. Through tax incentives & abatement's? Sometimes I agree they suck and sometimes it works.

But these are typically state programs through enabling act legislation. I doubt a president could change that. I.e. not a nationwide thing.

And how is the tax abatement to the medium sized manufacturer or retail giant a "unnecessary burden" on others?

[arcane1]

11. That was mostly sarcasm, that WM makes it hard for smaller businesses to compete w/them

I think the only thing a president can do is lower taxes on rich people and claim it's relieving a burden on small business.

[JanMichael]

12. Gotcha. Long day two beers and no irony or sarcasm meter working now! nt

[jberryhill]

8. Dunno, but I'll tell you a story

A growing and vibrant Hispanic community in my area has breathed new life into a couple of strip shopping centers that were on the skids for a long time.

I dropped into a panaderia to give my very rusty Spanish a workout and see what was on the menu that maybe I'd never had.

In the course of making my order (for what turned out to be a sandwich to die for), I got the "We don't get too many Anglos in here" vibe, and I was as much of a curiosity as I was curious about what was for lunch. I always enjoy that sense of mutual curiosity - you got stuff, I got money, let's figure this out.

So, as I'm eating my sandwich, the lady running the place comes over with a letter in her hand, and she wanted me to try to explain to her what the letter said, since she couldn't read it.

It was a letter from the landlord advising that while the shopping center was generally responsible for exterior lighting, she was responsible for her illuminated sign on the outside. The signs there are all those rectangular box affairs with translucent plexiglass which are lighted by several fluorescent tubes running crosswise. Apparently, one of the tubes in her sign was burned out, and the landlord wanted her to put in a new tube.

So, I asked her to sit down while I tried to figure out, with my awesome sub-100 word vocabulary, how to tell her that she needed to change one of the lights in her sign.

But after I left, I was really struck by these folks that go on about "how hard it is to start a business" because of all of this "burdensome regulation", when it seems to me that there are folks who are pretty challenged in a lot of ways, but starting a business doesn't seem to be one of them. She certainly had her license and health department certificate duly on display, and you might think that's a lot tougher than trying to read a letter that says, "you need to change a light bulb".

I figure a lot of these "burdensome regulation" types are people who maybe didn't have a knack for running a business in the first place.

[JanMichael]

10. Bingo. Plus in most areas municipal regs are in Spanish too.

And either federal or state laws make translation services mandatory when needed.

Private owners of strip malls could give a shit. Thank you.

[lumberjack_jeff]

17. +1 n/t

[awoke_in_2003]

18. You should have offered to fixed it for her...

in exchange for a future meal. That would be cheap for her, and you'd get a free meal.

[jberryhill]

19. Heh...

Anyone with the requisite ladder, specialized lamp and tools to open the sign would likely wonder what I would be needed to do.

[HassleCat]

13. Randroids could find one

The old "burdensome regulation" thing is an appeal to people who read too much Ayn Rand, or people who get too much of it secondhand. They feel they would be hugely successful and rich, except that they were somehow cheated, denied the big break, stifled, kept from realizing their full potential, etc. And who did this? Why, the shadowy, nearly invisible, faceless bureaucrats in the federal gummit, of course.

[HornBuckler]

15. I always ask those chowder heads if they'd prefer things to be ran by say, Comcast instead.

I tell them you can vote for change in the government but you can do fuck all against a monopoly. Some get the point, most do not.