Bob McCarty Writes

Among those who gathered in downtown St. Louis Saturday afternoon to rally against government-run health care, high taxes and rampant socialism was Dave McArthur, owner of McArthur’s Bakery, a family business that’s operated in the Gateway City since 1956.

After sharing his heartfelt beliefs with the crowd estimated at 2,500 or more, many of whom spent more than three hours at the Kiener Plaza venue, McArthur told me the most important thing Americans can do to set government back on the right track is to get involved.

“As a small business, we stepped out of the box, taken a chance,” he said.  “You know, you’re gonna make some people made, and you’re gonna make some people unhappy with ya, but you’ve got to do it.

“It’s quite simple,” he continued.  “If we don’t get involved in the government that’s gone astray (and) that’s going crazy today, small businesses like us won’t exist in five years.

“That’s the reality of it,” he continued.  “It’s not a cry.  It’s not a dream.  That’s just the reality of it.”

Asked to outline his top three issues, McArthur said the biggest one is taxes.

“It’s a tax on top of a tax on top of a tax,” he explained.  “That’s your highest cost of running an operation today.”

He said his second most-important issue is health care, an item he described as his greatest employee-related expense.

“Surprisingly enough, we can supply first-class health care for our employees at half the cost of what Obama says he’s gonna charge me,” McArthur continued, “so it’s going to double our cost of health care to our employees — with less of a policy.”

Third on McArthur’s list is cap-and-trade legislation now making its way through Congress.  He described it as putting “a big enough knife in their back” that it could bring an end to many manufacturing companies in this country.

The bakery owner went on to outline how hiring had ceased, his workforce had dropped to its lowest level in three years and how customers are spending less as a result of today’s economic conditions.

“We see it in things like sizes of cakes that we used to sell,” he explained, sharing an example that a person having a party for 40 will, instead of buying a full-size sheet cake, buy a small cake.

“People have less to spend to spend,” he said.  “Our cost of living has gone up and our wages have gone down.

The only thing that’s grown, he said, is big government; hence, one of the many reasons he and so many other like-minded conservatives came together yesterday.

For more coverage of the Tea Party Movement in St. Louis and elsewhere, click here.