Thursday, October 13, 2011

U.S. Senator Johnny Isakson (R-GA)
Floor Statement on Small Businesses

Mr. President, I wish to, first of all, kind of tag on to the remarks of the leader for just a second. One of the things I wish we would do in this body is get out of the business of demonizing certain segments of our population. Both sides are guilty of it, from time to time. But I wish to particularly talk about the major employer of the United States--small business--and the leader's reference to the 5.6-percent surtax.

Documents show that 392,000 taxpayers would be impacted by a 5.6-percent surtax in order to pay for the President's jobs bill. Records show that 72 percent of the American people are employed by small business.

We have to ask ourselves this question: If we are interested in creating jobs, why would we target the job creator that creates three-fourths of the jobs in America and put a surtax on them? It does not make any sense. If there were sincerity in that offer, those people would first and foremost be carved out on any punitive surtax and we probably would have more employment.

I wanted to make that point. I will join anytime, anyplace, anywhere with the leader to work on creating jobs because that is job one for the United States of America.

I was a small businessman for 33 years, ran a small business for 22 years.

I understand the heart and soul of small business. Today I come to the floor to talk about two small businesses in Georgia and the effect of regulation on those small businesses and the decisions they have made this year that impact employment and the economy.

One is a lovely lady named Susan Kolowich. Susan is a dear friend of my wife's. My wife worked for her for 13 years, has not worked for her in the last 5 or 6 years. She opened a shop in East Cobb County, in Marietta, GA, 23 years ago called C'est Moi--``It is I.'' She loves France. She would go to France every year and buy, and she would bring back gifts which she sold in her gift shop.

It was a successful small business for 23 years, so successful that her husband Jim, who had been a Subway sandwich shop owner, decided to open a restaurant called Cafe de Paris and join it with her C'est Moi shop so people could come and shop and eat and get a flavor of France. For 10 years he ran the restaurant and for 23 years she ran the store successfully. It was difficult in the last 3 or 4 years because of the economy, but they stayed in business. But finally she threw in the towel and sold the company. She sold her shop, and Jim, her husband, sold his restaurant. They sold them because they were up to here with the oppressive regulation of our government and the continued threat of things exactly like the surtax on their small business at a time in which sales are very difficult. That is not an abstract story, that is the truth. I am sure it is happening in Mississippi, and I am sure it is happening in Wyoming.

Let me talk about a little bit larger small business, Hennessy Jaguar and Hennessy Land Rover over in Atlanta, GA. One of the principals in it is a guy named Steve Hennessy. Steve is a good friend of mine.

On January 3 of this year, I went to the OK Cafe in Atlanta to join a couple for a meeting about some legislation. It is kind of the watering hole for breakfast in Atlanta. Everybody who is anybody kind of goes there. It is a great place to eat. When I walked in the door and walked past the cash register, where you can see out into the cafe, to see if my guests I was going to meet with were there, Steve spotted me. I was not going to meet with him. He jumped up and said: Johnny, I need to talk to you now. He ran across the restaurant. I thought he was going to give me a bear hug, he looked so excited. He got up close, and he put his index finger right on my chin. He said: I just fired a salesman and hired two compliance officers to comply with the credit requirements of Dodd-Frank.

So regulation did create two jobs. It created two compliance officers, but it cost a salesman. Well, if you are punishing the salesman and rewarding the compliance officer, the economy is going to go straight down because you are punishing productivity, you are punishing job creation for the sake of regulatory compliance.

Now, some regulation is good. I believe our job as legislators is to see to it that we mitigate risks for the American people. But this administration appears to think its job is to eliminate risk. Well, if you eliminate risk, you stay in bed--when you wake up in the morning, you stay there until night, you do not do anything because you do not take a risk. Capitalism is about risk. Risk and reward are about our economy.

So when people talk about regulatory oppression, those are two stories in Atlanta, GA, where regulation has actually caused two businesses to be sold and jobs to be lost and another business to hire two people to comply with government regulation and fire someone who was in sales. It is backward at best, and it is wrong.

So I say to the leader, who did make an acknowledgement that he wanted to mitigate regulation, let's sit down and let's find out what we need to do. Let's call a timeout. Let's do what Senator Collins from Maine said. Let's take a timeout for a year. Let's try to digest and absorb the regulations we have passed without continuing to put more threatening regulations on top of businesses at a time when we have 9.1 percent unemployment in America, and in my State we have 10.2. It is time for us to be proactive on taking the shackles off American small businesses, not threaten them with surtaxes and not oppress them with regulation. Instead, let's work to empower small businesses to help us come out of this recession.