I am a greedy businessman. At least that is what the politicians and liberal/progressives want you to believe.

My wife and I own our own business together with two other couples. We are incorporated. That’s right, we are one of those evil corporations. There are millions of others just like ours across the country and hundreds in each of our local communities. Ours is just one of the “small” businesses that make our economy work.

Rich? Hardly. Some years we make a good living, but many years we struggle to pay our bills and keep our employees – well – working. This year has been especially difficult. In July we had to lay off an employee. We are happy to report that he is doing well working for another small newspaper in Eastern Washington. Last week we had the opportunity to celebrate with him as he received the “Feature Writer of the Year” award at the Washington Newspaper Publisher’s convention for work he did for us. It was difficult to let him go but encouraging that in some small way we could help in his pursuit of his personal success.

In July we also had to take several other drastic measures to insure we could continue to operate our business and meet our financial obligations. For example, we had to eliminate our employee health plan. Renewal was just too costly. In fact, our provider would not guarantee that our double-digit rate increase would be the last one this year. Progressives of course are blaming that on greedy insurance companies and not on their failed health care plan.

Don’t get me wrong. I am not whining. I just want voters to understand the issues here. Despite the challenges, I love what I do and enjoy being my own boss. All of the small business people I know are just like us. They struggle every week to meet their payroll and find ways to grow their businesses and create jobs. We would all rather to be adding new employees than laying them off. They, just like us, endeavor everyday to provide customers with the goods and services they need. Yes, we hope that in the process we make a profit.

But watching and listening to the current political debate, private employers like us are being unfairly demonized. According to the ads we are dishonest, self-serving, greedy capitalists who cannot be trusted. We should be taxed, fined or regulated in order to insure we don’t victimize anyone else or that we are made to pay for our greedy ways.

The real truth is it is the small businesses like ours that create the jobs that will ultimately get us out of this economic funk. Neither the government nor the unions have ever created a real job. They grow government, which produces nothing of tangible value. Unions have virtually given up organizing the private sector where they now represent less than 9 percent of employees. They represent 99 percent of government employees where spending is out of control. The result is higher unemployment and a moribund private sector economy.

Over the last 20 years, irrational environmental policy has destroyed our manufacturing and energy industry. Unions and government bureaucrats are quick to blame evil corporations for moving their jobs overseas, but who is really to blame? Those who create the divisive, restrictive and confiscatory policies never look at themselves but continue to attack those who do what they have to do to protect their investors. And if you think that the profitability of big corporations doesn’t matter to you, you might want to take a look at your pension and 401k investments. Outside of Social Security, retirement programs are all dependent on the profitability of large publicly traded corporations.

All that current politicians have to offer is promises and blame. Promises that you and I and our children will pay for with a lowered standard of living and less freedom. Blame that it is somehow the fault of private sector greed that their policies and programs have not produced an economic system that is more robust and fair.

It doesn’t matter whether we are talking about electing representatives to national or state office. The theme is still the same. Class warfare, demonization and personal attacks on anyone who would dare to challenge these pseudo-intellectual elites right to rule our lives is the recipe for reelection. It is amazing how successful this strategy has become.

Election after election they promise more, deliver less and then declare again how this is not the time to elect an inexperienced replacement. Really? Who created the crisis in the first place? Our country was founded by “inexperienced” peasants that believed they could do better than the elite governors appointed by the King. For 236 years our republic has thrived with leadership provided by inexperienced citizen legislators. We can do it again. It is time to dump the experienced incumbents. It is time to clean house. It is time for voters to reject the politics of class warfare and personal destruction that has ruled our elections for too many years.

Continuing to elect the same old ballot of “professional politicians” will only prove that we are really as dumb as they privately think we are.