In my youth, I often said that the toughest thing I had ever done in life was survive Air Force boot camp. In retrospect, I can assure you that the daily grind of owning and operating a small business has been much more challenging - primarily because it is getting more difficult to earn the pennies and make them count.

For 23 years, I have owned and operated a retail business on Line Avenue. Although it is hard for some to believe, I have made very little money, despite the fact that I have worked 60 to 80 hours per week, watched my bottom line, and made every minute productive. Why, you ask? Taxation - at the city, state and federal levels. How very disheartening it is to watch my hard earned pennies squandered or misappropriated away by elected officials. Quite frankly, I’m sick of it. I am tired of being taken advantage of and I will no longer stand quietly by and pay the price for someone else‘s mismanagement.

We have a serious debt problem in this country and it is time to STOP spending at all levels and live within our means. My city and parish business property taxes this year were $16995.55, a 22% increase from 2007. And now the city wants to pass a $175 million dollar bond issue? Surely you jest! I realize the majority of the cities in my beloved America are facing the same reality Shreveport is - crumbling infrastructure. But why? Because city leaders did not put money away for a rainy day to maintain that which they built, because they practiced poor fiscal responsibility, and because they suffered from a lack of vision. Yes, they can easily shift the blame to their predecessors. Better yet, they can make the tough decisions necessary to bring

their budgets into alignment with their current revenue stream.

In the daily operation of my business, I have to make those types of difficult decisions. If there is no money in the bank, I STOP SPENDING and I simply do without - for one reason only. I have nine employees who depend on me for their livelihoods. If I misstep, there is great potential for each of them to lose hours or ultimately to lose their jobs. In four years, I have gone from an average of 20 jobs offered per quarter to 15 - not because I haven’t sought out new revenue streams, not because I have mismanaged my livelihood, but because this community produced a taxation burden that is strangling me.

To my elected leaders . . you are no longer welcome to my hard earned dollars, nor to the labor of the precious young women who work for me. Stop “stimulating” and squandering it away. You didn’t earn it, and thus have no appreciation for what it took to generate it. Furthermore, you may no longer make dollar decisions without proving to the citizenry that you have a long range plan in place to address community needs.