Democrats’ Secret Tax on Business is a crime
Ohio Republican Congressman Mike Rulli knows firsthand what it is like to operate a business. He is the operations director for his family-owned chain of grocery stores in Ohio’s Mahoning Valley.
He also knows that the Democrats’ hidden tax on businesses in the cities they run is a crime. The ability to conduct their trade in a hostile environment is taking an impossible toll on business owners, whether small mom-and-pop operations, franchises, or even large corporations. They are moving out of America’s once-great cities.
“Coming from a family of small business owners and seeing firsthand what it takes to run one, I cannot imagine what it must be like to have your livelihood and hard work destroyed because your government can’t protect you from crime. No business should have to close because their representatives cannot assure your safety,” Rulli said.
Inner-city businesses—large and small—are closing at an unprecedented pace, and these cities are paying an undisclosed tax brought to them by the lenient law enforcement beliefs of the Democratic Party’s Leftwing.
Consider the following list of businesses that have closed in once-vibrant business districts in some of America’s greatest cities. Just in San Francisco – according to a June 22, 2023 article by Danielle Chao in Reform California – Saks Off Fifth, Old Navy, Anthropologie, Amazon Go, Whole Foods, Office Depot, Nordstrom, HandM have closed in downtown San Francisco. This is in addition to abandoning the Hilton San Francisco, one of the city’s largest hotels.
This same article quoted Carl DeMaio, Chairman of Reform California as declaring, “The overwhelming facts prove businesses and residents are fleeing San Francisco due to the crime wave and a spike in homelessness. And you can blame the liberal politicians in San Francisco for enacting fatally flawed laws that enable crime and promote homelessness”
In Chicago, corporations like Caterpillar, Boeing, Tyson Foods, and Citadel have fled the Windy City. Why? According to Citadel CEO Ken Griffin, it is crime.
He said in a Wall Street Journal interview, “If people aren’t safe here, they’re not going to live here. I’ve had multiple colleagues mugged at gunpoint. I’ve had a colleague stabbed on the way to work. Countless issues of burglary. I mean, that’s a really difficult backdrop with which to draw talent to your city from.” He also mentioned that carjackers accosted his security detail but failed to get his vehicle.
The cost of crime is a secret tax on businesses and residents. It increases costs when inventory is stolen and increased security measures are purchased. Meanwhile, sales decrease because customers fear shopping in crime-ridden areas. Finally, there are increased insurance costs. This triple threat is ruining the business environment. So businesses leave because they can neither adequately increase prices to cover their costs nor adequately discount their prices to draw shoppers. Add to this the competition from the internet, and it is a recipe for bankruptcy.
The effect of crime on businesses is not the only cost. Research conducted by Kathryn E. McCollister, Assistant Professor of Health Economics, and Michael T. French, Professor of Health Economics, both from the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, as well as Hai Fang, Assistant Professor, Department of Health Systems, Management, and Policy, Colorado School of Public Health, University of Colorado and published online in 2010 and reprinted by the National Library of Medicine, calculated the cost of crime.
They wrote: “Crime generates substantial costs to society at individual, community, and national levels. In the United States, more than 23 million criminal offenses were committed in 2007, resulting in approximately $15 billion in economic losses to the victims and $179 billion in government expenditures on police protection, judicial and legal activities, and corrections (U.S. Department of Justice, 2004a, U.S. Department of Justice, 2007a, U.S. Department of Justice, 2008).”
The Rand Corporation has a cost of crime calculator which can be found here.
Unless political leadership is willing to stop this crime wave, our cities will become wastelands. Democrats have proven they cannot and will not do it.
Indeed, quite to the contrary, Democratic Party George Soros-funded District Attorneys such as Alvin Bragg, Chesa Boudin, Larry Krasner, and George Gascon are Leftwing ideologues determined to reshape society to the doctrine of Antonio Gramsci, Angela Davis, Derrick Bell, the Frankfurt School, Prison Abolitionists, and Capital Punishment Abolitionists, among others.
Michael P. Tremoglie is a retired newspaper columnist. He was an investigative reporter for the Philadelphia Bulletin and a regular contributor to the Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia Daily News, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, and the Washington Times. He also served as a Philadelphia police officer.
Congressman Mike Rulli is spotlighting a critical issue: crime is imposing a hidden tax on businesses. As crime rates rise, companies in cities like San Francisco and Chicago are closing or relocating due to increased costs and safety concerns. This “tax” comes from stolen inventory, higher security expenses, and reduced customer traffic. With billions lost annually due to crime, it’s clear that without strong action to tackle this issue, our cities risk becoming uninviting to both businesses and residents alike.
This is the type of fact, based evidence of the Democrats real policies and their results we need to see a lot more of. Too bad the mainstream media ignores facts.