Big Business runs the show

This morning, I read the Orlando Sentinel's local news page, even though I don't usually read that anti-gun rag. When I got to the Osceola County page, I found same articles that I wanted to post on, so this is the second post in that thread. This is yet another example of how the big corporations are controlling the access that small businesses have to a level playing field.

Transportation impact fees that a new business must pay are cost prohibitive. [pdf alert] To build a business in Osceola County, that one impact fee can be up to $25,558 PER SQUARE FOOT, to be paid over five years. This fee is in addition to all of the other taxes and fees that must be paid.

For example, if a 24,000-square-foot bowling alley were to be built in St. Cloud, for every 1,000 square feet of building, the transportation impact fee would be $10,178, according to examples the city provided. The total transportation impact fees for the bowling alley would be $249,000.

My brother was going to open a ten lane bowling alley in that town, and he determined that opening this bowling alley would cost him over $1 million in taxes for the first five years of operation, not including payroll taxes, sales taxes, and not to mention the cost of building, operations, and personnel expenses for the 20 people that he would have hired. How can a small family business operate with such a heavy burden?

Of course, large corporations get waivers, like this 65,000 square foot Publix shopping center, where the government waived $1 million in transportation fees and $21,000 in permitting fees to allow this shopping center to be built.

When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion - when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing - when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors - when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don't protect you against them, but protect them against you - when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice - you may know that your society is doomed.- Ayn Rand