Hunter: Local Economies Can Improve By Reining In Federal Bureaucracy

Rep. Duncan D. Hunter, R-Alpine, a second-term congressman, met recently with Patch editors from his 52^nd Congressional District.

Taking part in a 40-minute interview at the Press Box Sports Lounge in Rancho San Diego were Chris Jennewein, senior regional editor for Southern California, and editors Steven Bartholow of Santee Patch, Julie Pendray of Ramona Patch, Hoa Quách of Poway Patch, Ken Stone of La Mesa Patch and Eric Yates of Mount Helix Patch.

Hunter told Patch “Jobs and national security—those are two of the main things I work on all the time.”

Still, many local constituents continue to feel the brunt of a down economy. The latest unemployment figures, released by the state's Employment Development Department in July, in many East County communities.

The unemployment rates are as follows: Spring Valley (12 percent), Mt. Helix-Casa de Oro (9.7 percent), La Mesa and Santee (each 8.7 percent), El Cajon (14 percent), Ramona (9.8 percent), Poway (6.3 percent) and Lemon Grove (12.9 percent). Those figures compare to overall rate of 10.4 percent across San Diego County.

"If you’re talking local jobs, once more, the only way, at a federal level, I think the way you can affect local companies is by reining in federal bureaucracies," said Hunter. "So when the EPA goes to my dry cleaner on Jamacha and Main and says you’re doing this wrong, it’s a $5,000-a-day fine until you’ve fixed it, that hurts business."

Hunter believes that once the national economy become stabilized, it will trickle down to local businesses. But he also argues that if local businesses are lumped in with major corporations in terms of federal regulations, it will be difficult for many small businesses to get back on their feet.

"I think that things have been unstable in general for investors. That’s why you see a whole lot of businesses that have cash on hand not spending their cash on hand. And I think that affects the small business.

It’s interesting, though. The way things like that at the high federal level trickle down to touch local businesses is huge. Because when you think of something that affects over $100 million or $1 billion in business throughout the entire country, the reason it affects them that much is because GE—that $1 billion isn’t just GE—that $1 billion could be 10,000 laundromats have been affected by this. And that’s why it adds up.

That’s the majority of these regulations that affect smaller companies. Think about it. If you’re a big business, if you’re a big corporation, you have no problem hiring the accountants and lawyers to deal and jump through all the hoops the bureaucracy’s making you jump through.

It’s when the local small guy has to deal with those same rules and is bunched in with the big Wall Street CEOs or whoever the bad guy of the day is, when they’re lumped in with them and they have to jump through those hoops, too, they can’t do it. Because they don’t have the ability. That’s why Obamacare scares a lot of people at the small-business level moreso than at the big-business level.

You know, you see big corporations a little bit worried about it. The people you really see worried about it are small-business owners because they don’t know how to do it. They don’t have the accountants, they don’t have the lawyers, they don’t have the lobbyists. They don’t know how they’re supposed to jump through all of these hoops and they could be fined.

You go into any business and I bet you there are laws and regulations on the books that are being violated by that particular business that they have no idea about, simply because there are so many laws and regulations. And that’s why you have so many lawyers for big corporations.

They have so many things to keep track of, they don’t want to slip up. And that’s what their job is—to make sure they’re complying with all of these different regulations set by all these different bureaucracies."

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