Herrera meets with business leaders in Chehalis

“Too much government. Too much control,” declared Donna Petty of Better Weigh Manufacturing & Truck Parts in Toledo. “It just keeps growing and growing.”

The roundtable discussion in the 3rd Congressional District’s most conservative county was a snapshot of Republican anger and fear over new health care legislation and the prospect of changes to energy and tax policies.

“If the federal government would just step back a little bit … productivity would increase,” Herrera, a Camas Republican, told the group of about a dozen people gathered in a back dining room of the Kit Carson restaurant. “Our success as a country is going to depend on the folks sitting around this table. … The number one issue is jobs – whether you expand your business, grow your business, pass it on to the next generation.”

Olympia Democrat Denny Heck, who is opposing Herrera in the race, was not immediately available for comment.

The people at the table Thursday didn’t sound optimistic about their businesses’ futures, and they were eager to blame President Obama and other Democrats.

Shari Nixon, who owns several McDonald’s franchises, said she fears regulations heaped on her by this year’s health care reform bill will cut deep into her revenues and create a paperwork nightmare. Nixon said she’ll have to hire an additional office worker to make sure everyone on her staff is enrolled in the correct insurance programs and all of the correct paperwork is sent to the government.

“Talk about financial devastation and also administrative and management of the whole process,” Nixon said. “This is going to cost me 31 percent of my net income.”

Herrera said the health insurance industry certainly needs reform, but she favors “free enterprise alternatives” to the legislation. For example, she said, “association health plans” would allow for small businesses to band together and buy policies across state lines at cheaper costs. Such a program, Herrera said, “doesn’t create a new mandate. It doesn’t create a new bureaucracy.”

She continued: “When one party says we’ve got the magical bill to fix it, that’s not the case. I don’t care what party it is. They key is making sure that it’s done to protect individual liberty and to infuse more choice with free-market solutions.”

Attorney Rene Remund told Herrera he suspects the proposed “Cap and Trade” policy, which would limit industrial carbon emissions, is a leftist plot to undermine the private sector.

Business interests face “philosophic opposition to the development of the continuing economic strength of the country,” Remund said. “The best way to strangle this country is through ‘Cap and Trade’ using carbon as a means. … It’s a means to another end.”

Chehalis dentist John Henricksen said he’s worried that the Bush administration’s tax cuts will be allowed to expire at year’s end. The cuts brought federal income taxes for high earners to their lowest levels since the Great Depression. The Obama administration wants to retain the cuts for people earning less than $250,000 but let the cuts expire for those earning more.

Herrera has said she wants to keep the cuts in place for all earners.

If the tax cuts are allowed to expire, Henricksen said he’ll scale back his hours, serve fewer patients and reduce his employees’ hours as well.

“Why should I work longer hours just to pay more to the government?” Henricksen asked. “I’ve got my accountants figuring out just where I need to be to break even with where I was. … It’s going to affect my patients. … It’s keeping us in recession. Period.”

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