Tuesday, August 13, 2013

After showing his support for Rotary and Rotarians, Congressman Randy Hultgren gave the club a brief overview of his background. Hultgren grew up in the happenin’ burb of Wheaton, where his family owned a funeral home right downtown. It had a really big impact on him as a child because he learned what running a small business was all about, including what it means to be involved in the community and what it’s like when you have to pay everyone else before yourself. However, having a mortician as a father did have its drawbacks. There were plenty of mortifying dinner conversations, and on several occasions, Randy would run into a new corpse on his way to junior high. He told a humorous story about asking his dad to tie a tie for him for one of his school dances. After a few failed attempts at trying to tie it backwards, Randy’s father put him into a position he was more familiar working on, lying down on his back. 

Despite the name, he went on, Congress’s recess is nothing like the playground. Last week alone, he had twelve town hall meetings, basically three a day. Mr. Hultgren talked more about the struggles of starting a small business. He attributes the difficulties to over-taxation, over-regulation, and overreach by the federal government. He narrowed his focus to the stifling regulation of local banks. In his view, the Dodd-Frank legislation passed after the financial collapse is too much of a burden, where the officer is more powerful than the president of the bank. He isn’t against all regulations, but he just wishes more government agencies would do a costbenefit analysis of their policies to determine if they are worth pursuing. 

His fear is that all of the government mandates are hurting the job market. It’s clear that the shift from full-time employees to a focus on part-time workers is a problem for our country. It hurts confidence in the overall economy. Let’s hope that our leaders in Washington can come together and find a solution that benefits all Americans.