Free Republic

Winter is approaching and many restaurants that have relied on outdoor dining to recoup some of their lost business during the pandemic will soon lose their lifeline as temperatures drop.... Restaurateurs across the country this week called on their cities' mayors to extend outdoor dining, warning them that many more closures could be imminent if they don't push for the measure, as the Delta variant compels the majority of patrons to steer clear of indoor dining rooms, new research shows. About 110,000 restaurants and bars have either temporarily or permanently closed during the pandemic, according to National Restaurant Association.... ...Specifically,...

“Our Nation’s small businesses define our communities, drive innovation, and create the products and services that enrich our lives and solve global problems to build a better and more sustainable world,” President Biden declared in a September 10th proclamation highlighting American small businesses. Does the Biden administration have small business interests in mind? Absolutely not. The Biden administration claims 97 percent of small business owners won’t see tax hikes under the president’s “Build Back Better” agenda. The Tax Foundation, however, countered, “By focusing on the number of people, the Biden administration is misleadingly claiming their tax proposals would have a...

SHENZHEN, China—Wu Lei says his small construction company in central China has accepted commercial paper from property developer Evergrande as payment for two years but with that paper’s value now in doubt, his firm is on the verge of collapse.China Evergrande Group, saddled with more than $300 billion in total liabilities equivalent to 2 percent of China’s GDP, is in the throes of a liquidity crisis that has it scrambling to raise funds to pay its many lenders and suppliers.Wu, 35, was one of around a hundred protesters who descended on the headquarters of the country’s No. 2 real estate...

As a former assistant chief of police and founder of a company that provides security services, I thought I knew much about the business of protecting people. But career politicians in Washington are giving all of us a masterclass in how to safeguard the interests of ultra-wealthy and powerful people like themselves through a multi pronged expansion of the death tax. If passed, the effort would destroy American jobs, eliminate incentives for small and family-owned businesses to grow, as well as further cement the status of society's most elite echelon. The provisions of concern – a reduction in the federal...

One of the ways the Biden Administration plans to help pay for its very expensive Green New Deal is to levy higher taxes on assets that parents pass down to their children. Under current law, certain inherited assets like farms, real estate, and investments can be left to heirs without being taxed. This enables family businesses to be retained in the family from one generation to the next. Under the proposed new tax, the son or daughter inheriting the family farm or store would face an immediate bill for the appreciation in value the business has garnered over the lifetime...

There is no “neutrality” for American business. We either band together or get swept away by the woke tide. The substance of political discourse today rarely revolves around particular matters of policy: instead, public political debate consists of delegitimizing the other side. You and everyone else is called a fascist and a racist if you hold a position contrary to the ruling class. As I said a few years ago, what was at stake in nearly every attack on Trump was “not a normal matter of policy but the legitimacy of the Trump presidency itself and its power to set...

Some New York City restaurants will defy Mayor Bill de Blasio's (D.) order to ban unvaccinated people from entering businesses. De Blasio's mandate, which officially takes effect next week but will start being enforced Sept. 13, requires anyone who enters an indoor business in New York City to show proof of vaccination. The proof can come in the form of either the city's "Key to NYC Pass," the state's "Excelsior Pass," or a vaccination card. But Pasticceria Rocco in Brooklyn won't be requiring any passes from its customers, manager Mary Josephine Generoso told CBS New York. The award-winning Italian pastry...

Lockdown proponents across the media are smugly patting themselves on the back, proclaiming that stay-at-home policies didn’t harm the economy. Try telling that to the millions of small-business owners who were irreparably damaged by prolonged and irrational restrictions. With many big corporations deemed “essential,” ... small businesses struggle to survive. Nearly two-thirds of them are hitting only half or less of their pre-lockdown monthly revenue levels, ... Then there are the businesses that never recovered at all. ... Small business forms the US economy’s backbone, accounting for more than 99 percent of all business entities, and before 2020, around half...

If you wanted to find the group getting the rawest deal in 2021 America, you might start with small-business owners. Many are finding themselves working 60- or 80-hour weeks just to scrape by. During the height of COVID-19, these companies were especially beaten down. Between Jan. 1, 2020, and Dec. 31, 2020, about 30 percent of U.S. small businesses closed, while total small-business revenue decreased by 31 percent, according to Economic Tracker. During the same period, the stock market boomed, and multinational corporations continued to thrive. The effects of this economic destruction are apparent in communities all over the country....

In a House floor speech last night, Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) compared Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Harvey Weinstein to President Biden in being [unable to] "give money away," a ding against Biden as 25 states reject enhanced unemployment benefits. See video at link.

Do small businesses warrant threatened species protections today, given the decimation they endured since spring 2020? Given the circumstances, they absolutely do. In her forthcoming book The War on Small Business: How the Government Used the Pandemic to Crush the Backbone of America, “recovering” investment banker and New York Times bestseller author Carol Roth details how the government exploited the COVID-19 pandemic to crush the engine of our economy: small businesses. Not only is big government to blame, big business is equally guilty. In addition to small business, Roth warns other decentralized aspects of the economy could be similiarly destroyed....

COVID shutdowns championed by U.S. governors and D.C. bureaucrats are responsible for destroying nearly 40% of small businesses since the virus was unleashed on the world—and we know now that it was for little to no damned good reason. A study by the Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences revealed recently that shutdown orders made little to no difference in COVID’s impact. ... While bureaucrats gave Walmart, Costco, Lowe’s, and other big-box stores “essential” status, allowing them to stay open during the COVID pandemic, 38.9% of America’s small businesses, the providers of most of the country’s jobs, were forced...

During the 2020 campaign Joe Biden promised that taxes on small businesses would not go up. So why is he now pushing numerous tax hikes that would hit small businesses? His promise is not up for interpretation. During a Democratic debate in February 2020, Biden said: “No. Taxes on small businesses won’t go up.”Now that he is safely in office, it appears he has no intention of keeping this promise. The $3.5 trillion in tax hikes Biden has proposed includes several small business tax hikes. His proposal to increase the top marginal income tax rate would hit small businesses organized...

Few have been immune from the impact of COVID-19, but the challenges have been particularly severe for the nearly 32 million U.S. small businesses forced to adjust to ever-changing government restrictions, the acceleration to digital, and now labor and supply chain shortages that may impact their recovery. Entrepreneurial grit and ingenuity in the face of such obstacles have been nothing short of inspiring. Yet, as we celebrate the resiliency of small businesses during this National Small Business Month, they face a new threat: disruptive government regulation of the very tools that have helped them transform and survive.Key lawmakers on both...

Restaurants and venues owned by white men will be last in line for federal relief under President Joe Biden’s “Restaurants Revitalization Fund” (RRF), prioritizing funds for women and minority groups first. As part of Biden’s American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, the SBA is opening the application process by which owners of restaurant, bars, and other venues can apply for federal relief to help make up for the loss of revenue as a result of economic lockdowns spurred by the Chinese coronavirus crisis. The plan allows business owners to apply for relief of up to $10 million per business and...

During his address to Congress Wednesday, President Joe Biden made a statement that was immediately acknowledged by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) as alarmingly radical. "We the People is the government," the leader of the Republic told the legislative branch of government and the American people, signaling an intent to embrace the notion that the federal government should become a much more dominant cultural and economic force in American’s lives because it is what they are -- the people. Cruz took to twitter and responded: “No Joe, you seriously misunderstand the Constitution,” the senator wrote. “’We the People’ is not the...

When Major League Baseball decided to relocate the All-Star Game and Draft from Atlanta due to alleged “restrictions to the ballot box," our country recoiled and our politicians -- from the President on down to local activists -- backpedaled. The fallout from the misinformation campaign means Georgians and small businesses will strike out. A Rasmussen poll showed a plurality of African American respondents disagreed with MLB’s decision and a majority agreed it was a bad idea to combine sports and politics. The great American pastime can do without a partisan power struggle.For years, Stacey Abrams and her Democrat allies have...

Visit undercuts Biden claim that loan program failed to help small businesses President Joe Biden speaks with W.S. Jenks & Son co-owner Mike Siegel (Photo by Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images) Matthew Foldi - MARCH 11, 2021 1:50 PM At an event designed to showcase President Joe Biden's small business agenda, a store owner credited the Republican-backed Paycheck Protection Program passed during the Trump administration for helping save his business. Mike Siegel, the co-owner of a Washington, D.C., hardware store, told Biden during his Tuesday visit that the PPP allowed his business to pay at-risk employees while they stayed home...

Three stories about apolitical businesses and charities, like the many others before them, portend a scary future for using social media platforms to market one's cause or business.Three stories about apolitical businesses and charities, like the many others before them, portend a scary future for using social media platforms to market one's cause or business. The second story is even worse. It involves an incredible charity called the Emerald Coast Children’s Advocacy Center (ECCAC), whose mission is to provide support for children who have been sexually or physically abused, neglected, or assaulted. What was ECCAC’S social media crime?Facebook categorizes ECCAC...

Democrats really have forgotten the American worker, they are so intent upon pushing their agenda for control. We’ve already seen this in the first moves from Joe Biden which weren’t about helping Americans or America, they were all about radical agendas over climate change and immigration. For example, Biden canceled the Keystone Pipeline not caring how that it would throw thousands out of their jobs during a pandemic where the economy was already under stress. Now in Biden’s virus “relief” bill he’s pushing for the big ticket Democratic agenda item: the $15/hour minimum wage. Biden apparently doesn’t give a darn...