Home Depot Co-founder: Obamacare Will ‘Kill Off’ Small Business

Retired Home Depot co-founder Bernie Marcus declared to Newsmax TV in an exclusive interview that “Obamacare is going to kill off small business.”

“If [employees] are thrown out of their medical plans now, where they’re covered in a good plan and thrown under the bus, they’re going to be destroyed,” Marcus said on Thursday. “If, in fact, they don’t stay as full-time employees but go to part-time employees, they’re going to be destroyed.

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He talked to Newsmax at the Job Creators Alliance Free Enterprise Leadership Summit in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.

“People have to understand that the villain is not their employer; the villain is the U.S. government,” Marcus added. “Obamacare is the capper. That’s the bullet to the temple.”

Marcus, who retired from Home Depot in 2002, established the Job Creators Alliance two years ago. The nonprofit group seeks to advocate for entrepreneurs and small-business owners.

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“When we started Home Depot in 1979, we did not have the barriers that we have today,” Marcus told Newsmax. “The barriers are just monumental.

“Everybody out there has one determination: to stop you in your tracks. When did you ever hear a bureaucracy say: ‘Let’s help you with your business. Let us help you grow’? Doesn’t happen, unless you’re a big contributor. Other than that, no one is out there to help you.”

Small business needs an advocate, Marcus said.

“We’re trying to teach small businesses to fight back. They do have the ability to fight back. Seventy percent of the workforce in America today is in small businesses. We will give them the ammunition to do it. We’ll give them the messaging to get through. What we’re going to do is tell them the facts.”

And one fact is that fewer people are in the American workforce today than when Home Depot started in 1979, he said.

And, as such, “to whom is the economy good?” Marcus asked. “To whom is it good? It’s good to the politicians. Washington, D.C., is wealthy as hell. Tell me about the unemployment numbers all over the United States. Tell me about the 25 million people who no longer look for jobs. Tell them how good it is.”

Marcus also said that he fears that Republicans on Capitol Hill have lost interest in small business, too.

“They’re on the defensive constantly — and it’s unfortunate, but the Democratic Party is not in favor and not working for small business. I don’t think that many Republicans really work hard for it, either. They all think in terms of their own entitlement.

“Small businesses have very little power, but the people in the power seat — and that’s Democrats right now — are in control of the lobbyists and the far, far right, and nobody gives a crap about the small-business guy.

“He’s suffering the penalty,” Marcus told Newsmax. “He has no voice, nobody hears him. The small guy is underrepresented. He’s a dead duck. We’re trying to help that.”

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