Pawns Stars boss Rick Harrison has joined the chorus of those entrepreneurs who have blasted the Obama administration for its perceived anti-business policies .
Rick Harrison is co-owner of the World Famous Gold and Silver Pawn Shop and the dude who does most of the bargaining that is shown at that Las Vegas venue on the hit History Channel reality television series, with an assist from Big Hoss, the Old Man, and Chumlee.
In an interview on FNC, Harrison talk about how he wanted to film a show in a small-town in southern California that apparently is a destination for thousands of weekend dune buggy riders. The feds, however, denied issuing him film permits on federal land “because of budget cuts” officials claimed. Harrison pointed out that he was trying to give money to the government for the film permits. Even a low-budget reality show employs over 100 people who pay taxes, he noted. “It’s beginning to drive me insane.”
Harrison particularly is fed up with government regulations that prevent entrepreneurs from building a business , hiring staff, and having a chance at the American dream:
“Just between every layer of government that you have to go through to open a small business now … I’ve been an entrepreneur my whole life, I’ve made money on businesses, I’ve closed businesses, and everything else. In the 80s, it would take you two or three days and you’d have a business license and be operating. Now it takes months to get the doors open … and shuts out more and more people. It really is the American dream for a young person … to scrape together why they can and work like a dog and really try to make something of themselves. If they fail…they can do it again.”
As far as Obamacare and its thousands of pages of complicated implementing regulations and how that affects his pawn shop employees, Harrison admitted that he needed to go out and hire a consulting firm “to tell us what to do.”
Do you agree or disagree with Rick Harrison of Pawn Stars that the government red tape stands in the way of small business formation or expansion?