The Democratic presidential candidate’s professed love for such enterprises is belied by her support for a policy that would destroy them.
The Democratic presidential candidate’s professed love for such enterprises is belied by her support for a policy that would destroy them.
I n last week’s infomercial with Oprah Winfrey, Vice President Kamala Harris attempted to reveal new, more conservative features of her dimensionless campaign for president. Among these: She owns a gun and believes in the dream of home ownership. She also (get this) loves small business.
It’s hard to think of a presidential administration that has done more to destroy small business than this one.
Harris’s description of her plan to support American entrepreneurs, as with most of the candidate’s policy statements, began with a story about her childhood in Oakland, Calif. And as with most of her statements about complex issues, this one ended in political fog, mysticism, and hypocrisy.
“We grew up, actually, for a long time, in an apartment on top of a child-care center that was owned by the woman we called our second mother, because she helped my mother raise us, and she was a small-business owner: Ms. Shelton,” she told Oprah. “Part of my plan is what we need to do to support small businesses, because my second mother was a small-business owner,” Harris continued. “And I love our small businesses and our small-business owners. They are not only business leaders. They are community leaders. They — they mentor; they hire locally. And we have so many entrepreneurs in our country who have great ideas, incredible work ethic, but not necessarily access to capital, because not everybody, like my opponent, was handed $400 million on a silver plate that he filed bankruptcy six times on.”
At this point, the vice president’s official transcription helpfully adds, “Laughter.”
“And so, part of my plan is to give start-up small businesses a $50,000 tax deduction to start up their small business. Right now, it’s $5,000. Nobody can start a small business with $5,000.” The two go on to chop it up:
WINFREY: It’s — that’s a teeny-tiny business. (Laughter.)
THE VICE PRESIDENT: That’s — that — that’s business in —
WINFREY: $5,000 — teeny-tiny business.
THE VICE PRESIDENT: It’s a concept of a business. Right? (Laughter.)
WINFREY: Yes.
THE VICE PRESIDENT: You know where I’m going. (Laughs.)
WINFREY: That’s right.
THE VICE PRESIDENT: And part of —
WINFREY: It’s still on paper with the $5,000.
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Right. Right.
WINFREY: It’s still on paper.
THE VICE PRESIDENT: It just hasn’t happened. But —
WINFREY: Right.
These laugh lines and the double and triple affirmations reflect the absolute certainty with which these two very wealthy women assert that no American can expect to create a small business without a tenfold increase in the federal small-business tax credit. They’re wrong, of course. And few administrations have done more than this one to crush small — especially teeny-tiny — businesses.
Take freelancing, which often requires a fairly universal type of start-up capital: human consciousness, a body with a brain, expertise, entrepreneurial energy, and an ability to work with others. You and I might call this capital the human person. Much of this generally comes with the privilege of having been born. Following California’s lead, however, earlier this year, the Biden-Harris Department of Labor changed federal rules to limit freelancing. It’s still pushing the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, which would nearly ban the practice. The PRO Act remains stalled in Congress, but Harris has made the passage of the bill a key part of her campaign.
Julie Su, the White House’s acting secretary of labor, is running point on the effort to kill independent contracting — just as she did in California. Back then, serving as the state’s secretary of labor, Su was responsible for implementing the disastrous anti-freelancer law known as Assembly Bill 5. A.B. 5 crushed hundreds of thousands of California business owners — those who operate as independent contractors as well as those who employ or otherwise rely on them. Now, Biden, Harris, and Su are working overtime to impose that malignant policy on every corner of the republic.
“The chilling effect alone will put many independent contractors out of work,” predicts Karen Anderson, a writer, editor, photographer, and creator of the Facebook group Freelancers Against AB5. She points out that the new federal rule is a “a mind-boggling 339 pages,” so complex that even freelancers exempted from California’s byzantine A.B. 5 will likely find themselves jettisoned by employers who don’t want the compliance hassles associated with the sprawling federal rule.
“As usual with government overreach, it’s the little guy who gets hurt, like the one-person business or the mom and pop who are not allowed to contract with a fellow independent professional, or who get audited by the Employment Development Department or the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement for alleged misclassification violations that result in astronomical fines and penalties,” says Anderson.
When he signed A.B. 5, Newsom said the new law would stop companies from “wrongly classifying” workers as “independent contractors rather than employees,” which “erodes basic worker protections like the minimum wage, paid sick days and health insurance benefits.” But then he roared when he probably ought to have said nothing: “Assembly Bill 5 is an important step, . . . a next step in creating pathways for more workers to form a union, collectively bargain to earn more, and have a stronger voice at work — all while preserving flexibility and innovation.”
Harris’s — the Democrats’ — real intention behind crushing small business is to rebuild the Democrats’ fundraising machine. Like the English enclosure movement, obstructing the creation and growth of small businesses drives workers into corporate work, where unionization is more likely. Unions, in turn, bankroll the campaigns of politicians who, once in office, return the favor in the form of friendly legislation. Those politicians are almost invariably Democrats.
Julie Su remains a mere “acting” secretary of labor because congressional Republicans and a few Democrats object to the PRO Act and other White House crimes against small business. We hardly need note that, while serving as California’s secretary of labor, Su lost at least $30 billion to fraudsters. That amount included $20 billion that American taxpayers had loaned California during Covid. But never mind: Biden and Harris airlifted Su out of Sacramento, leaving California’s businesses, including tens of thousands of small ones, to repay the federal loan through escalating payroll taxes. Because California’s economy is so unstable, state officials now say they don’t know how long the punishing taxes will continue.
This week, the House Committee on Education and the Workforce subpoenaed Su for her failure to respond to congressional demands for documents surrounding her role in the White House’s anti-freelance effort. “DOL has again failed to provide the information needed for the Committee to review the Biden-Harris administration’s implementation of the FLSA [Fair Labor Standards Act] — particularly as it relates to classifying independent contractors as employees,” Chairwoman Virginia Foxx (R., N.C.) said in a letter. “Given DOL’s repeated failures, the Committee must now resort to compulsory action.”
Despite all that, Su is still in place at the U.S. Department of Labor — she is now the longest-serving acting secretary in American history. Should Harris win in November, Su’s likely to keep the job.
Introducing Su to a union crowd in Philadelphia last summer, Harris pointedly gave her a verbal promotion: She first introduced Su as “acting secretary Julie Su” and then — ignoring constitutional protocol, which requires the Senate to confirm cabinet members — ostentatiously revised her introduction: “I’ll call her ‘labor secretary.’ I’m not going to say the word ‘acting.’” Su thanked “my sister from California” and went on a tear, eagerly telling the crowd that “enforcement” of business regulations is “the key” to achieving the Left’s social goals.
“Believe me,” she said, “you can’t achieve empowerment and equity without enforcement.”
It may be that Harris truly loves entrepreneurs. It’s possible that her affection for small business is so capacious that, as Chesterton said of thieves and property, she won’t rest until American enterprises large and small (if any are left) have come under the thumb of Su’s “enforcement” regime, so that they may properly respect them.