Broadway Market Video

On the corner on Broadway and Republican in our Capitol Hill neighborhood, Broadway's best video rental store has managed to weather the economic storms. The Gap, Fred Meyer, QFC (Kroger), Safeway and other multiregional publicly traded retailers, and suburban mainstays, left when their leases ended leaving the stretch of Broadway nothing but empty shells awaiting demolition and resurrection as multi-use condominium complex's Even though no one who made Capitol Hill great will be able to afford one, it is at least nice to know that the people who live in these ultra-overpriced boxes will become customers to a video shop that will appreciate them.

The same people have worked there for years. They walk to work each morning. I see them in the Capitol Hill coffee shops and bars. They allow my dog to wander around the store with me while I am looking for a video. Instead of bloating the selection with the most expensively produced new blockbuster, the shop's collections feature plenty of independent and quality films, and a documentary section that you would never find at a chain. And the store personnel know just about everything about every film on the shelf. Of course, when you want to watch the latest Witherspoon release or begin to feel that Bruckheimer has been absent from your life for too long, they are ready shed the layer of dust that usually collects on the case of that and similar tripe.

I am not sure how the owner is able to compete with Netflix and Blockbuster, but he does. I am certain there are many others in the area who are just as grateful for that as I am. The policy in the United States has been to squeeze the small businesses while subsidizing the large corporations with clear access to the power. While our elected officials tell us that their policies relieve small businesses of the economic crunch, I have difficultly accepting that.

If the administration really wanted to help small businesses, it would implement a national health program where employers with two or three employees can attract people who want to work for them. This would encourage part time employment that such businesses often need and maybe even allow people to work two or three jobs not because of the health insurance but because they like the job.

If the administration really wanted to help small businesses, they would raise corporate taxes for publicly traded corporations instead of reducing them. It would stop taking campaign donations from them and introducing bills favoring to these organizations, like the recent Internet Non-Neutrality nonsense.

If the administration really wanted to help small businesses, it would cease rewarding companies who can afford to spend billions in advertising with tax deductions. I have never seen Broadway Market Video's commercial on Fox News or even during the Mariners' game broadcast.

If the administration really wanted to help small businesses, it would allow people to borrow start-up funds through the Small Business Administration to promote their own innovations instead of limiting the dispursal of those funds to those who open Subway franchises.

If the administration really wanted to help small businesses, it would prohibit lobbying in Washington D.C. and every state capitol in the nation.

Why doesn't the administration at least give lip service to such initiatives? It may be because people are not agitating for them, on a sufficiently wide scale, but I cannot believe that. The real reason is Broadway Market Video, and most other small businesses cannot afford to contribute to campaign coffers, and politicians are not going to change a system that elected them.

In any event, at least some business owners can still run a business by putting a better product to market and making the transacting of business just as enjoyable as the product itself.