FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT www.queenscourier.com JANUARY 31, 2013 • THE QUEENS COURIER 33 oped HALL OF SHAME Grand Central Parkway Underpass & Springfi eld Incidents of graffi ti have risen. The Courier invites you, our readers, to submit photos of vandalism — or addresses where you see graffi ti — for our “Hall of Shame.” Conversely, if a home or business has “cleaned up their act,” submit them for induction into our “Hall of Fame.” Send all high resolution JPG images (300 DPI) to [email protected] with a location and a contact number. Otherwise, contact us at 38-15 Bell Boulevard, Bayside, NY 11361. Help us take our borough back from the vandals! street talk BY ROSA MICHAELS & MAGGIE HAYES What are your plans for the Super Bowl? I’m hanging out with family. Angel Caban I’m going to sit in my living room with my family eating pizza and buffalo wings. During the Super Bowl we get very loud. Daniella Sumair I’m having all the boys over to my place and I’m ordering a pizza so I don’t have to cook. Sandy Mounsey I’m going to watch the game. Michael B. I’m watching the game at home. Salah Almarashi I’m going to go out and enjoy watching the game. Mario Salazar I’m staying at home and watching the game. Peter Morales Boulevard Well, I don’t really know the game very well, but I sit with friends who like it and ask questions so I learn about the sport. Danny Sumair SMALL BIZ ARE ENGINES THAT DRIVE THE ECONOMY BY CITY COUNCILMEMBER DAN HALLORAN It has never been easy to run a business in New York City, one of the most taxed and regulated places on the face of the earth. Here in Queens, where small business is the backbone of the economy, this is going to be, to put it mildly, a challenging year. Payroll taxes have taken a bite out of paychecks and business checkbooks. The cost of Obamacare is kicking in and federal tax rates hit us harder, because it costs more to survive here, whether you’re trying to run a food cart or a factory. Customers have less to spend and business taxes, expenses and insurance costs keep going up, along with the cost of compliance with every rule and code, no matter how highhandedly administered. Job creators deserve tax breaks because job opportunities are critical to the future of our borough. A tax deduction for each employee would help small businesses and create more jobs. But you have to be making a profi t for a tax break to be meaningful. Too many businesses are struggling to stay afl oat. They aren’t hiring. If they continue to be overtaxed and over-regulated, some businesses with good jobs will leave and others will open shop somewhere less expensive than New York City. Some will close and more will struggle to keep the doors open, leading to even fewer jobs and a more depressed economy. But for every trickle-down tax break, the government makes a full-scale effort to legislate good jobs, frequently at the urging of people who never made a job that wasn’t paid for by taxpayers or contributors. Legislation setting a “living wage” and mandating paid sick leave may have been motivated by compassion, but whatever benefi ts will come at the cost of more than just jobs. We need to take a hard look at that cost because there’s nothing compassionate about more joblessness or small businesses closing their doors for good. Our small businesses are not ATMs for the government, but the engines that drive our economy. Ask a business owner in Queens and they’ll tell you that they want their business to grow. But you also hear business owners tell you that they aren’t being heard or helped by government as much as tormented and taxed. We need jobs and it doesn’t make sense to cripple our small businesses with burdensome regulation, punitive enforcement and staggering fi nes. If a minor violation is discovered by an agency inspector, a reasonable amount of time should be given for the owner to cure the violation, especially if there is no danger to the public or the employees. These fi nes on small businesses are shortsighted sources of revenue for the government, money that would be better be spent creating better jobs. What can the small business owner do, besides pay and pay? You can join local business associations like the Queens Chamber of Commerce, where you can get help from people who have been in business and add your voice to theirs in bringing your concerns to the government. You can get in touch with your elected offi cials and tell them how the laws and rules and taxes and fi nes are working out. We’re fighting to make Queens a center of commerce and help build prosperity for ourselves and for future generations. We’re the gateway to the Capital of the World, where people come to seek a better life. To do those things and help those people, we need jobs. We need to help business do it because the government can’t make enough jobs on its own, even in New York City where we have the federal, state and city government trying. Our small businesses are a big part of the answer and it’s time for the government to stop adding to the problem of creating good jobs. Every business owner knows that if you overcharge and underserve, you fail. We need government to get that same message when it comes to promoting business growth – and job creation. So far, it hasn’t heard it.
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