What Makes Businesses Pack Up and Leave

We know that thousands of businesses are leaving California, as Jane Applegate’s Small Business column, “When the Lure to Leave Is Strong” (March 12), points out, but they aren’t being lured away, they are being driven away.

But that is only half the story. Many more thousands are staying but cutting back.

This true case in point says it all:

A man started a service business and was doing so well that he began expanding. As his volume increased, he added employees. But by the time he reached 13 employees, he became discouraged and frustrated.

“I was doing more business and working harder but making less profit than when I started. The government was taking all the increase.”

So he did what any sensible person would do. He cut back and laid off 11 of his employees. The two remaining are on shaky ground.

He is still operating in California, but instead of 11 employees paying taxes and helping support the government, there are 11 people collecting unemployment insurance and draining the government.

We are supposed to be living under a democratic government, but excessive taxation and confiscatory policies are thinly veiled socialism. The more they tax, the more they take. And the more they stick their nose in business, the worse the economy gets. Are we going to be another Russia?

Why risk the money to start a business when you are going to be strangled by red tape and back-breaking regulations? Why work at all when you can make more money on welfare?

Business is probably the only area willing and anxious to work without any government “assistance.” Business is what is going to get this country back on its feet, if Congress will stop throwing money out the window faster than it comes in.

Don’t try to help business--just get off its back.

V. FRED RAYSER

Yucca Valley, Calif.