By John Romano
(YBH) – The AP ran a little story late this week about two young girls in Georgia having their lemonade stand shut down by police for not having a business license. Actually, the girls would have needed a business license, peddler’s permit and a food permit. The licenses would have cost the two teenagers $50 for the day.
Welcome to the new American economic police state. If you’d like a hint as to why the economy hasn’t come back from the brink look no further than Midway, Georgia and its overzealous police force. The true purpose of the business license, peddler’s permit and food permit is to raise money for the government. Plain and simple. Show us your papers or be shut down!
Starting a lemonade stand is a great way for a child or early-teen to get their feet wet as an entrepreneur. The lesson learned is that “Hey, if I make something people want I can get money for it!”. Instead these two girls learned “Why try?” $50 to open a lemonade stand to sell $.50 drinks. The revenue from the first 100 glasses would go to the government.
The problem for those that love an all encompassing government (read Democrats) is that they truly don’t understand how regular folks are just flummoxed and outraged by stories like these. A big government type will ask: How do we know how many calories are in the lemonade? What if it was made in unsanitary conditions? What if the lemonade was contaminated? Who will collect the sales tax that funds our roads and police and fire department? Blah, blah, blah.
I’ll caveat this piece with the fact that regulation, red tape, and government have all grown under Republicans and Democrats alike over the past 40 years. Neither party is innocent as America heads toward malaise and stagnation. Obama may be the poster boy of big government, but he is far from the sole cause of it.
However, one thing that all of us can agree on about President Obama is that he is a person that believes in government over private solutions to almost every issue facing America. Health care, banking, energy, you name it and the government should be in control of it. Quietly, the Obama government has expanded the scope and reach of the nation’s lemonade stand destroyers. Until he is out of office and America elects a new chief of police that gets what capitalism is really about the economy will be mired in the mud in my opinion. Nothing will change with Obama at the helm another four years. He has been a great foreign policy President, but as has been said before “it’s the economy stupid.”
It is time for the government to encourage the nation’s lemonade stands not shut them down while looking for a fee or tax. It would be great to have a President, Republican or Democrat, that truly understood this simple little concept.
Related posts:
- The Limits of Central Government in Modern America
- SayAnything: First They Came for the Kid-Run Lemonade Stands
- Our neighborhood roadrunner, rewriting the old chicken-crossing-the-street thing.
- No teleporting required: Particle Physicist Discovers Fastest Way For Airlines To Board Passengers – The Consumerist
John Romano is the publisher and editor of Yes, But However!, a musician, a former political correspondent for BBC Radio London, and a serial web entrepreneur. Follow him on twitter: twitter.com/yesbuthowever or John Romano on Google+John Romano article archive.
