Moore or Less this Country Needs Us

I wrote a letter to Michael Moore awhile back about doing a film on small business.  Follow us around and see what we go through.  Watch us compete in the free enterprise system and when we have a slow day see how it tears us apart.  See when we disappoint a customer how it hurts us not because of the money they won't spend at our business but rather that we let them down.  See how on a hot summer day we have to call a $65.00 an hour person to fix our air conditioner while we try to pay our other bills.  It is part of capitalism and I accept it and I never have thrown in the towel.  If you own a business you keep persevering.  The biggest frustration is the lack of respect you get from the government.  You are their answer for job creation which is a compassionate part of capitalism.  You are the government's answer for so much more.  Social Security, Medicare, unemployment insurance, personal property taxes, city taxes, school taxes, Friend of the Court payments and garnishment.  There is a saying at my gym when we are lifting weights to man up and I will accept that in the weight room and free enterprise.  I just want our government to smarten up when they make decisions about business.  Moore or less this country needs us.

Ms. Jamie

Sue and I went out to eat and were talking to our waitress (yes, I do eat at other places but Branns is my Favorite).  It was more than serving us an appetizer that impressed us; it was her dedication to getting ahead and her work ethic that impressed us.  She has four different jobs and she is working to support her young son and make the house payment.  I just admire that.  She said that she misses her son but tells him that she is doing it for him and I think he will take her work ethic traits that she is teaching him and this will lead her young son to a successful life.  She is teaching him something that few others could:  hard work and that having goals is important.  She's also teaching him that love is important and can be measured in different ways:  the time you spend with your child and also the time you spend working for your child.  TGFJ.  Thank God for Ms. Jamie.

Setting the Record Straight

I want to set the record straight on accolades.  Sue and I do not have any kids, so we have come to the window when needed on helping out our fellow citizens and it has been our honor.  Even though donating money involves hard work in earning it, and I do mean hard work, when you do donate money you get the pats on the back, and I have an ego and love them.

To set the record straight, I want you to hear the rest of the story.  Donations to Wyoming veterans park for their wall, I did.  It took me 60 seconds to write the check, but Jack Magnuson and Bob Nelson were the ones who served and got the park going.

To set the record straight, it took me 60 seconds to write the check to Metropolitan Foundation for assisted breathing center to provide dental equipment to be the first in the nation for the assisted breathing patients to get dental care; but Susan Watson, the head of the department puts her heart into the patients' care and Dr. Norman, the Ada dentist, in his first day of free dental care did ten patients and continues to donate his skills free every month.

To set the record straight, it took me 60 seconds to write the check for the helmets to the Wyoming Police Department for every cruiser, but the officers have to face dangerous situations every day.

To set the record straight, it took me 60 seconds to write the check to the Wyoming food pantry, but Gary Lemke deals with it every day, trying to help needy families in Wyoming.

I appreciate the pats on the back, but to set the record straight, I am writing this at my restaurant, having a glass of wine.  I raise my glass of wine to the people I have just mentioned, to set the record straight.

Grand Rapids Beer

You want a beer in a downtown Grand Rapids bar?  John Galt would stop this.  Who is John Galt?  That is for you to find out, but the real question is who is the head of the Grand Rapids Parking Division?  We have job creators who own their own beer distributorships that are getting parking tickets downtown because the big semis cannot fit into 3 parking meters on the downtown streets.  This is anti-business when we give the big beer semis tickets.  All they are trying to do is their job.  My John Deere lawn mower has a trailer on it and I have to get off my John Deere and lift the trailer up to get it parked.  How do we expect a beer driver to parallel park a big semi?  Work this out Grand Rapids or maybe Atlas will shrug.  This opinion is my own not the beer distributors'.  I just hate it when job creators are not respected for what they do.  Remember the election when it was jobs, jobs, jobs?  Don't ticket jobs.  Solution:  7AM to 11AM leniency.  Who is John Galt?

Child Work Bill

  The bill I would sponsor if I was a Congressman would be the Child Work Bill.  This idea of mine is work and mentorship together with a pay check as a reward.  My Mom died when I was 13 and the way my Dad kept me out of trouble was putting me to work at an early age.  In high school my friends were doing drugs and drinking.  I was not perfect and heading down that path.  Football at East Grand Rapids High School kept me straight but what really shaped my life and future was working with my Dad.  He was my mentor and I worked harder than anyone at his place so I would not be labeled the spoiled kid.  My idea for kids that are heading down the wrong path is this:  kids get in gangs at 11 and 12 years old and it is hard to get them out once they are in.  If a counselor at a school saw a kid that was giving up and heading down the wrong path he would assign this kid to a business.  There are a lot of great mentors that own or run businesses like Home Depot or Meijer.  This kid would get paid $4 an hour or so, social security and Medicare would be taken out.  The business would get a tax deduction for this because of what they are doing to save a kid.  Yes businesses do have hearts.  The kid would work about 10 to 12 hours a week and the job he would do would not take anyone else's job.  The mentor would have him do homework at the job on his break.  When the kid got his or her first check it will be addicting like the drug pushers would like but it would be the legal addiction called free enterprise and if the pupil wanted to keep his job he would have to keep his grades up.  We are short of mentors for our kids.  This would solve that and could you see it in Los Angeles:  the gangs wondering where their recruits are?  This is my idea.  Agriculture has an age limit waved and golf caddies can also work 11 or 12, why not let troubled kids work with a business mentor?  Let free enterprise save them.  It will work.

Tommy Brann

My Idea on the Budget Now & in the Future

Once you become a politician you are labeled right or wrong.  You are expected to bring home the bacon for your district right or wrong.  Ideology gets involved in your spending decisions right or wrong.

I would have a Citizens Patriot Panel that has to approve expenditures in bills.  It would be like the Congressional Budget Office but with more power. This panel would be composed of regular citizens that meet a budget everyday and that, after reviewing the bills, would go back to running their small restaurant, working at the dollar store, teaching students or working in a factory, etc.  They would go back to Meijer and buy milk and to the gas station and buy gas. They would not have the perks of Congress and would have to stay in touch with reality.

The panel would be called the CPP which is the Citizens Patriot Panel .  We would chose them with the simple test of how they manage their finance.  Do they have a rainy day fund?  Do they provide for their family?   The panel would not have fancy offices or big budgets but would have impact.  I would predict after the panel shot down some stupid spending that the legislators, knowing that their requests would go in front of the panel, would be more focused and better stewards of our money.

The panel would not get paid and not be up for election.  The panel could be overturned by the Congress with a special vote that would have to put on C-SPAN so the everyday citizens could see the everyday politicians being turned down.  I would predict that the Medicare and Social Security deficit would be straightened out by this panel.  I really think our citizen's love our country and if they understood the code red deficit we have they would make sacrifices on Medicare and Social Security.  The citizens panel would give backbone to our elected officials.  They seem to need it.