U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Free Enterprise Magazine - Interview

News Article

By Sheryll Poe

In 2010, 33 small business owners from both political parties were elected to Congress. That's more than three times the number elected in 2008.

They come from all over the country and all walks of life. Rep. Bobby Schilling (R-IL) and his family own and operate Saint Giuseppe's Heavenly Pizzeria in Moline, which employs eight people.

Until 2007, Rep. Richard Hanna (R-NY) owned and operated Hanna Construction, which grew over 27 years to employ more than 450 people.

Rep. Scott Tipton (R-CO) and his brother Joe co-founded Mesa Verde Indian, a 22-employee business that makes and sells Native American ceramics. Tipton was also a state representative in the Colorado House of Representatives before being elected to Congress.

Free Enterprise magazine sat down with Reps. Schilling, Hanna, and Tipton nearly a year after they were elected to see how their experiences in running a small business translate in the halls of Congress.

Free Enterprise: What motivated you to leave your businesses behind and come to Washington?

Hanna: I never thought about doing this. Living and building a business in New York state, you get a real sense of watching something that was once great and growing and full of opportunity just decline. It's like watching somebody die slowly. New York has the worst tax structure, is the most regulated, and has one of the largest bureaucracies. So I said, "I quit.' I turned my business over to my sister and her son, took about a year off, and then realized I wasn't good at not being busy. I thought about what I can do to use my life experiences and do some good.

Tipton: I had no intention of running for Congress. But I really believe that we are at a crossroads as a country. Twenty years from now, the sun will rise and the map will say the United States of America. But the choices we make right now and in the next couple of years are going to determine what kind of country we are going to be.

Schilling: For me, it was after President Obama was elected. The thing that really caught my attention was when he was on the campaign trail, as a senator, speaking with Joe the plumber. And he said, "We want to just take your wealth and spread it around a little bit.' Well, at that time, we'd been open 13 years, and I was working 60 to 70 hours a week. My family--my wife and 10 children-- had not been on a vacation for those 13 years, and I'm thinking, "Wait a minute. Now, I'm just starting to get my head above water, and you want to share my wealth? Are you kidding me?' That was a huge motivator for me.

Hanna: Ten children? So you ran for Congress to get out of the house.

Schilling: (laughing) My oldest son was my campaign manager. We were actually voted the best grassroots campaign in the United States by The Washington Post.

FE: What about your campaigns? Were any of you underdogs?

Hanna: We were outspent two to one. The guy I ran against had run for numerous offices--a real entrenched fellow. We had the closest race in the United States, and I had no experience at all.

Schilling: My seat was held by Democrats for 28 years. I was actually a senior in high school when the seat was taken. When we started running, the first thing I did was to meet all the county chairs and introduce myself. It was really interesting because you go out there and people say, "Great, we're going to have somebody to fill the ticket.' But I told people I'm not here merely to run. I'm here to take this seat.

Hanna: The idea that politicians are the only ones that can run for office is silly. It's no different than organizing anything else. You find out who you have to meet, what you have to do. You talk to different consultants. You have to know the issues and be willing to stay up and study and understand things, especially in the beginning. I know where I live and know my community. I basically understand the issues, so you just get out and talk about them.

FE: Rep. Tipton, you came to Washington after serving in the state legislature, so you had experience in running for office. Did it prepare you for a federal campaign?

Tipton: Well you certainly get more attention from the media, and there's a lot more scrutiny.

FE: How did you prepare between the election and when you came to Congress?

Schilling: We had our orientation, and it's like that saying, "drinking water from a fire hose,' because you have so much information coming at you all at once. I remember getting to the point where I had to step out of the room because there was just so much coming in. But I think that's where Rich, Scott, and I have an advantage with our business backgrounds. A lot of this stuff we're already used to in our businesses--dealing with people, whether they're happy or upset. It's been a big plus.

Hanna: We just prepared to get busy. We've got a great staff, and we were up and running virtually the day we came here. I don't think of this as anything other than a business, and actually it's a lot easier than the business I ran. There, I never got help making decisions; I never needed it.

FE: What are the greatest differences between being a congressman and running your own business?

Hanna: In a business, the measurement of success is long-term profit. I could figure out where I was every day by what I built and how it fit into the budget. And I had maybe 13 jobs going, 20 to 60 people working all the time. I could tell the progress I was making every day. You can't do that around here. There are a lot more nuances to it.

Tipton: I always liken it to when Dwight D. Eisenhower was asked about becoming president. He said, "Well, the big difference is when I was a general and gave an order, it was followed.' This is completely different. Over the course of time, we all have our measure of success, and maybe it wasn't in passing a bill. Maybe it was in holding up something. The measure of success is certainly going to be longer term.

Schilling: Something that I think is important, especially with small business owners, is that we're successful in our businesses because we're troubleshooters. That's the thing here that I struggle with because we don't have a lot of troubleshooters. What happens here is, if you've got a problem, or you're out of money, the thought is, "Well let's just raise taxes.' For us to be successful and make a profit in our business, when we have a problem, we troubleshoot it, we find a solution, and we move on to the next one. And that's what helps us be good representatives.

FE: What in your mind is the biggest obstacle to job creation, and how can Congress help fix it?

Tipton: One of the things I'm taking big personal satisfaction in is our oversight hearings. As a small business owner, it's remarkable to me the amount of overregulation. Whether you're a potato farmer in the San Juan Valley or the owner of a shoe store on Main Street in Grand Junction, it's overregulation coming down from government. And those of us coming out of the private sector have a unique perspective on that.

Hanna: We're working on a bill now to have a moratorium on regulation for a year. Regulation is like sand in gears. The laws of unintended consequences are worse than the laws we make sometimes. You can't own a barber shop in the state of New York these days without having an accountant on staff. Everything the government does, literally, is a tax on something.

Tipton: An interesting statistic just came out the other day that said compliance costs for small businesses come to $10,585 per employee. And we're looking at the margins. I mean, for Bobby, well he's fabulously wealthy because we all know the margin for pizza is great, but for pottery it's a thin margin.

Schilling: (laughing) Yeah, yeah. Food costs are going up though. But, really, what I tell people is that while I was minding my own business, trusting my representatives, and raising my family, these guys were taking us down the wrong path, a path of self-destruction right before our own eyes. It's time to do something. And everyone out there needs to engage in the process, whether it's state or local, Democrat or Republican. We've got to get people here who understand what's really hurting us and understand that more taxes and regulations aren't going to push our job creators into creating more jobs.

FE: Anyone have plans to run again?

Schilling: Definitely. I haven't announced yet, but yes.

Hanna: Depends. I agree with these guys that it's never been a better time to be here. I think this place would have been as boring as hell 10 to 15 years ago. I'd run again, but it depends on how enthusiastic and positive I feel about what I've been able to do here.

Tipton: Probably. This isn't a career. We've actually had a career. We've actually done something in the world. We just got tired of picking up a brick and throwing it at the TV every time the news came on. There needs to be that sense that you're doing something. When you look at what we have done, for the first time in history, we're actually debating the debt ceiling. I think that's pretty remarkable.

Schilling: I think the big thing with this freshmen class is that the majority of us aren't here for a wall plaque. We're here to fix America. It's like what Rich was saying. We need to be able to measure our success and see that there are good things we've done. But I also agree with Scott that we've done a lot of good things.

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