Progressive petri dish: Minnesota's new laws put thousands of businesses on the brink of ruin - Washington Examiner

foody.indah.link

The Washington Examiner went to Minnesota following news that the state's Democrats, the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, had fast-tracked one of the most liberal agendas in the country. What we found was a struggling Republican Party, angry small-business owners, and a complete stonewall from Democrats. In this series, the Washington Examiner takes a look at broken promises lawmakers made, how Republicans are trying to control the carnage, and the unintended consequences of some of the bills passed, including one that could wipe out small-business owners.

MINNEAPOLIS — Every Wednesday for the past eight years, Jerrilynn Sweeney has either made or bought lunch for her employees at Innovated Building Concepts, a commercial siding business in Burnsville, Minnesota. She did it to build camaraderie between the office workers and those in the shop or working in the field.

"We all sit in one room and eat," Sweeney told the Washington Examiner. "Everybody knows everybody's kids. We can laugh, we can joke, but when it comes down to 'We're in a load of [trouble], we've got to get this done,' they all stand up and help one another."

But these days, there's not much laughing going on. 

Like thousands of other small business owners in the state, Sweeney is bracing for new laws passed this year by the Democratic-controlled legislature that has targeted companies like hers and saddled them with huge expenses and a maze of regulations, forcing some to consider closing up shop for good. 

Jerrilynn Sweeney, president of Minnesota-based Innovative Building Concepts. Sweeney says the future of her company is up in the air following the Democratic-led state legislature passed a raft of regulations targeting small businesses. (Credit: IBC)

Minnesota was part of a midterm wave where voters rejected Republican candidates. The state's Democrats, known as the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, control four of the state's eight U.S. House seats, both of its U.S. Senate seats, both chambers of the state legislature, and all other statewide offices, including the governor's mansion. They have pushed through one of the most progressive agendas in the country this year at a breakneck pace, often shutting out the concerns of the people their regulations will affect.

Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) signed off on the creation of a state-run program that will allow full-time, part-time, temporary, and seasonal workers to take months off work with partial pay after having a child or when the worker or family member has a serious medical issue. Time off will also be allowed for adoptions, the military deployment of a family member, or in some cases, domestic abuse or stalking. Lawmakers capped the time off at 20 weeks with a 12-week limit on the type of leave. Earlier versions of the bill had allowed for workers to take up to 12 weeks for their own health issues and 12 weeks for a family member in the same calendar year.

"The vast majority of nations have this because they know it's the right thing to do," Walz said. "They also know it's the right thing to do to build your economy, to make it resilient and strong and healthy."

The new law doesn't go into effect until 2026, but any tweaks are likely to be minimal. Even if Republicans win a majority in next year's House elections, there is little chance any meaningful change will take place.

"You start thinking about this stuff, and you think, 'Holy s***, they're going to put us all out of business," Sweeney said. "I've worked my ass off for this company."

Innovated Building Concepts, which has less than 20 employees, opened its doors in 1987. Sweeney and her husband Pat bought the place in 2011, and the company's portfolio includes a Crayola installation, the US Bank Stadium parking ramp, LL Bean at the Mall of America, Dave & Buster's, and the Killebrew pedestrian bridge. 

"When we first started, we didn't take paychecks. It was 2016 before we actually took a full salary," she said, adding that she once worked 50 days in a row. Despite the blood, sweat, and tears the couple has poured into the business, their future remains uncertain.

Pat Sweeney, co-owner of Minnesota-based Innovative Building Concepts, a commercial siding business. (Credit: IBC)

The same can be said for Mike Flynn, a small business owner in southeastern Minnesota, who owns a small ranch, has an interest in the Whitewater Travel Plaza and Restaurant off Highway 190, and is a dentist.

The day the Washington Examiner caught up with him, he was wearing his dentist hat.

"They don't know the storm that they created," he said. "To be a legislator, you don't have to be a business person, and you don't have to major in mathematics or balance a checkbook. You have advisers who tell you how sweet and perfect this is going to be, but the devil is in the detail. What is the unintended consequence of this passage?"

Flynn said a comparison between Minnesota's law and those in other states points to some troubling signs.

"The Minnesota one is the most aggressive, loose one in the country, second to nobody as far as how extensive they want this to be," he said, adding that the state is already facing a labor shortage and small businesses are struggling to hire everyone from "dental hygienists to clerks, cooks, and servers" that are not only "hard to find but hard to replace on a temporary basis."

Flynn said there are too many questions that still need answering, such as who pays for medical insurance if an employee works two jobs and whether employers will be required to match 401(k) contributions when employees are on leave.

John Reynolds, state director for the National Federation of Independent Businesses, which represents more than 10,000 small business owners in the state, told the Washington Examiner that they feel "betrayed" by their elected officials.

"The idea that they turned their backs on us really captures how most small business owners feel here," he said, adding that they had to navigate the pandemic and well as inflation and supply chain shortage headwinds. "We had the biggest surplus by far the state has ever had, and [small business owners] feel like that's the product of their hard work. Being the economic backbone of a lot of parts of the state, I think they thought, 'Hey, this is going to be a time when we get some relief.'"

For their part, Democratic lawmakers have touted their accomplishments this session and have rebranded themselves as friends of small business.

"It's a really puzzling conclusion from the session," Reynolds said. "The taxes are just part of the story. Minnesota is a really expensive place to live and an expensive place to do business... You name it, we tax it."

Minnesota was ranked the most expensive state for new entrepreneurs, according to a July state-by-state comparison from online small business adviser SimplifyLLC. The state also has the country's highest corporate income tax rate at 9.8% and has high labor costs.

“I am not surprised,” state GOP Rep. Natalie Zeleznikar told the Duluth News Tribune about the No. 1 ranking, adding that the legislation passed in this year's session was akin to a "war on small business."

For Sweeney, it's heartbreaking to imagine what the next few years could hold for her company.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

"We're small. We can't absorb that kind of money," she said. "Almost everything they passed is going to hurt small businesses. You shouldn't be allowed to run for legislator unless you've run a small business yourself so you know what a real budget is and what it takes. What you take away from us, you take away from the next person and the next."

The Washington Examiner reached out to Democratic leadership in the state and Walz's office multiple times for comment but did not receive a response.

Catch Part Two of the Washington Examiner's Minnesota series tomorrow where we take a look at the state of the Republican Party as it tries to claw back power.

Adblock test (Why?)

"dish" - Google News
July 24, 2023 at 04:51PM
https://ift.tt/T3sJzbg

Progressive petri dish: Minnesota's new laws put thousands of businesses on the brink of ruin - Washington Examiner
"dish" - Google News
https://ift.tt/YGBf7d2

At BroadwayCon in Midtown, Jewish actors dish on identity and representation in the industry - JTA News - Jewish Telegraphic Agency

foody.indah.link

(New York Jewish Week) – A woman dressed as Fanny Brice from “Funny Girl” and another dressed as Fruma Sarah from “Fiddler on the Roof” were among the 100-plus people who filed into a Midtown conference room on Friday morning to discuss Jewish identity on Broadway.  

The Jewish fans — whose real names were Jackie and Michelle, and declined to share their last names — were dressed as their favorite Jewish musical characters, and were attending one of the first panel discussions of BroadwayCon 2023. The conference, at the New York Marriott Marquis hotel in Times Square, is an annual gathering in the vein of ComicCon that brings thousands of fans and industry professionals for a weekend of celebration, singing, discussion and meet-and-greets.  

The panel, called “Jewish Identity and Broadway,” came together in less than a week, its organizer Ari Axelrod — a Jewish actor, singer and educator — told the New York Jewish Week. He said he organized it in response to the July 11 casting announcement for the national tour of “Funny Girl,” in which a non-Jewish actress had been chosen to play Fanny Brice, a role made famous by Barbra Streisand. Brice, a pioneering Jewish comedian in the early 20th century, struggled with her Jewish identity in her rise to fame.

In the aftermath of the casting announcement, the debate over whether or not non-Jews can play Jewish characters — a term actress and comedian Sarah Silverman dubbed “Jewface” — resurfaced online.

Amid the hubbub, “Somebody had said to me, ‘You should host something,’” Axelrod told the New York Jewish Week. “It was in direct response to the casting.”

While there have been Jewish-focused panels at BroadwayCon since the annual conference began in 2015, the past year has been a landmark one for Jewish stories on Broadway — particularly those that deal with antisemitism, including “Parade” and “Leopoldstadt,” which both won Tony Awards. “Parade,” about the real-life antisemitic lynching of Jewish factory superintendent Leo Frank in 1915, saw a neo-Nazi protest outside of the theater while it was in previews. Michelle dressed at Fruma Sarah, the ghost that Tevye says haunts dreams in “Fiddler on the Roof.” (Julia Gergely)

Michelle (dressed as Fruma Sarah) attends the conference every year, and said she was interested in the event because she is Jewish and became interested in Jewish representation on Broadway during a BroadwayCon panel she attended in 2020.

“There was a rabbi who was an actor. He said that there was a time he wasn’t cast to play a rabbi because he didn’t look Jewish enough,” she recalled. “I thought, ‘He’s a rabbi, how can you get more Jewish than that? It just really made me realize how much of an issue representation is for us.”

Speaking on the hour-long panel was Axelrod, who was named to the New York Jewish Week’s “36 Under 36” (now known as “36 to Watch”) in 2021; Talia Suskauer, who starred as Elphaba in the Broadway run and national tour of “Wicked”; Shoshanna Bean, who was nominated for a Tony Award last year for her performance in “Mr. Saturday Night”; Brandon Uranowitz, who last month won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play for “Leopoldstadt”; Zachary Prince, who has been in several Broadway shows and recently performed in “A Transparent Musical,” based on the Jewish-themed TV show, in Los Angeles; and Alexandra Silber, who played Tzeitel in the most recent Broadway revival of “Fiddler on the Roof.” Moderating the panel was Becca Suskauer, a New York-based Jewish actress. 

The wide-ranging discussion touched on Jewish representation, identity, pride and joy during a period of rising antisemitism. Panelists also noted that the goal of the conversation was to talk about how Broadway actors and insiders can actively uplift Jewish stories as well as those from other oppressed groups.

Suskauer emphasized that people should “listen before you speak and listen before you immediately go to pass judgment on something,” while Bean encouraged attendees to “be introspective” towards their own internalized prejudices if they are nervous to speak out on issues affecting marginalized groups. 

Axelrod — echoing Michelle’s comment — spoke of the double standard that he feels exists within the industry — the idea that Jews are sometimes deemed “not Jewish looking enough” to play Jewish roles, but “too Jewish” to be cast in other roles. He also said there was a perceived double standard in that it’s considered acceptable for non-Jewish performers to be cast in Jewish roles, something that is frowned upon regarding other ethnic groups. 

Support the New York Jewish Week

Our nonprofit newsroom depends on readers like you. Make a donation now to support independent Jewish journalism in New York.

“There is this fear amongst the Jewish community that we can be Jewish, just not too Jewish,” Axelrod said. “We have a responsibility to dismantle that entire internalized assimilation within ourselves, because it’s important to show the world who we are. But to show them the world we can take multitudes, we first have to believe in ourselves.”

The “Funny Girl” casting only came up with 20 minutes left in the discussion. And while the actors made a point of noting that the actress chosen for the role, a Latina woman named Katerina McCrimmon, was very talented, they said it was nonetheless disappointing and worrisome to have a non-Jewish person playing Fanny Brice, who was a real person who often played on Jewish stereotypes to garner laughs from mainstream audiences.

An attendee of the panel dressed as Fanny Brice, the Jewish main character in “Funny Girl,” which will end its Broadway run this fall. (Julia Gergely)

“I was so excited for the role of Fanny Brice to be played by someone who is able to live so solidly and steadfastly and their Jewishness and who can bring that on the national tour to places that don’t have a lot of Jews,” Suskauer said. “I got immediately so scared when I heard that someone not Jewish was going to be playing at this Jewish stereotype. She can do this research, she can try to do it as respectfully as possible, but at the end of the day, she’s going to be playing at a stereotype while wearing bagels on her body.” (Suskauer was referring to “Private Schwartz from Rockaway,” a number in which Fanny imagines herself as a Jewish soldier and dances with bagels strung around her body.)

But the panel ended on a positive note. “‘To live is an actionable decision that we get to make every day, and when we say ‘l’chaim,’ we are literally saying ‘to life,’” Axelrod said.  “I think it is imperative to every single person in this room that when you clink your Manischewitz, or your Kedem grape juice, and you say ‘l’chaim,’ mean it. Take those words as a call to action and do it, literally. Go do something that reminds you that you’re a Jewish person who was living your life.”

Rho and Maddy, teenage twins from New Jersey who declined to share their last names, said they attended the panel for the potential to meet Uranowitz, one of their favorite actors. They were surprised at how much the panel resonated with them. “It was really great to hear everyone’s opinions,” Rho said. “I’m so glad I came.”

“Especially as someone who is half-Jewish, there’s a lot of assimilation and sometimes being told and believing ‘you’re not really Jewish,’ or that doesn’t count,” Maddy said. “[This panel] definitely showed me I want to and can be an activist for my community.”

Adblock test (Why?)

"dish" - Google News
July 23, 2023 at 10:08PM
https://ift.tt/PWYKrXt

At BroadwayCon in Midtown, Jewish actors dish on identity and representation in the industry - JTA News - Jewish Telegraphic Agency
"dish" - Google News
https://ift.tt/kF4x2jf