Friday, June 19, 2009

Evidently California lawmakers really hate my small business.

California lawmakers, having so far failed to either smother my small business to death with paperwork or bleed it to death with taxes, are apparently looking for new options.

My small business badly needs clerical, bookkeeping and other help, but can't afford the money or paperwork overhead of hiring. I do everything myself because I can't afford to get help within the hiring rules.

The only hope I see of a company as small as mine hiring help which can produce more than their pay + taxes + insurance + paperwork overhead costs is to find competent, inexpensive independent contractors. Now, according to the California Chamber of Commerce, the State (technically, the Democratic majority) proposes to take that hope away.

All this to avoid "painful" cuts. I have some perspective on that- In 2001, I made about a median income for the Silicon Valley and lived comfortably within that income. My career ended in 2001 during the "dot-com" bust. Since then, I have been chronically under-compensated and as a result have learned to live on about 1/4 of my 2001 income. It was painful in some ways, but not impossible.

While I was reducing my standard of living and telling anyone who would listen that they should do the same since it was obvious that it was only a matter of time until real-estate would do what dot-com had, the State of California was spending practically everything they could lay hands on and crying for more.

I say it's past time for the government to feel some of my pain. Before the Democratic majority proposes to further reduce my standard of living, perhaps to a point where I can no longer survive, it should first reduce the government's standard of living to at least 50% of what it was in 2001. In other words, they should cut half as much as I have.

Squeezing my small businesses for what little I have left can't solve the fiscal crisis. Economizing in Sacramento, where vast amounts of money are wasted daily, can.