As Carrie wrote earlier, the owner of 40 Denny's restaurants in Florida just announced he will be adding a five percent surcharge to customers' bills in order to pay for Obamacare taxes and added regulations. But it isn't just the customers who will pay; he has also pledged to cut employees to under 30 hours, effective immediately.
Better get used to it, America.
Denny's is just the latest in a string of restaurants that have announced these sorts of cuts. Olive Garden, Red Lobster and Papa John's Pizza restaurants have also announced plans to cut the employee hours. The reason for these cuts? To avoid Obamacare's requirement that businesses or franchises with more than 50 workers offer an approved insurance plan or pay a penalty of $2,000 for each full-time worker over 30 hours.
Will Republicans be able to capture this voting bloc–the formerly fully employed restaurant worker who must now find an additional job in order to make up for the reduced hours? If Republicans can successfully explain to this demographic that their bleak employment future is caused because of regulation, not the lack of regulations, there's a chance.
These real-life examples can help drive home the important message that small government is better for people's economic future. It offers a good explanation for why Republicans so often advocate for less regulation on business. It isn't so that those businesses can rake in even more profit (although that's certainly a worthy goal), it is so that businesses can have the flexibility to run their business the way they see fit and that includes not penalizing industries that offer their employees full time employment.