Mugged by reality: Ex-Dem congressman starts business, discovers it's hard work, regulations are insane

I wish David Bonior well. I really do. Maybe I shouldn't after everything he did in the '80s to prop up communist thugs like Daniel Ortega. But if you've started and run a small business, and you've experienced the challenges of trying to make one survive and thrive, then you can't help but empathize with another person who's taken on the same challenge.

Then again, most people who start small businesses did not spend years as Democrats in Congress railing against the profit motive, doing the bidding of labor unions and imposing crushing regulations on everyone who tries to make it as a business owner. David Bonior did. After decades as one of the United Auto Workers' best friends on Capitol Hill, Bonior retired from Congress a few years ago to do whatever it is that Democrats do when they're no longer able to use their legislative power to afflict normal Americans. But that's where it gets really interesting (hat tip, by the way, to my once and long-ago colleague Chad Selweski on this): Bonior decided to join with some family members to open two Washington D.C. restaurants, which are called Zest and Agua 301. He took the endeavor pretty seriously too, talking to lots of people and picking just the right spot where there would be an opportunity for growth. He even brought fliers to all 435 House offices and worked the Washington D.C. subway.

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OK. I must say, I'm impressed. That's how you make a business successful. And so far it has been, turning a profit and running pretty efficiently under the day-to-day management of Bonior's stepson and daughter-in-law, both of whom had restaurant management experience before taking on the task of running Zest and Agua 301. But here's where it gets hilarious: Bonior thought it was ridiculous that all the regulation and permitting government imposes on restaurants took six months to work through. Here's what he told the Washington Post about that:

"It took us a ridiculous amount of time to get our permits. I understand regulations and....the necessity for it. But we lost six months of business because of that. It's very frustrating."

Shame on the bad government imposing excessive regulations on salt-of-the-earth small business owners like David Bonior! But it gets even better. When Bonior was in Congress, he tried to pass regulations that would have forced restaurant owners to pay servers and other employees who receive tips more than the $2.36 per hour tip wage. He failed, but he tried. So you want to take one guess as to what Bonior pays his servers?

To make the numbers work, he pays his 50 or so employees -- who are not union members -- what he calls "the tip wage," which is $2.36 an hour. He said that when he was in Congress, he worked hard to increase the "tip wage," but it was a casualty from the successful effort to increase the minimum wage. Bonior tries to motivate employees with baseball tickets and discount meals. His employees get paid vacations of at least two weeks a year. Most employees who were on the restaurants' health plans have signed up for coverage via the Affordable Care Act. Bonior's restaurants do not have retirement plans, although he says he plans to institute them in the future.

Someone needs to send a union into that sweatshop to organize the workers! No, seriously, I hope Zest and Agua 301 make it. They sound like a fun places to eat. I have a hard time rooting against any entrepreneur because I've been there - I'm still there! - and I know how difficult it is. (Plus, Bonior is a huge baseball fan, although he seems to have forsaken the hometown Tigers for the Washington Nationals. The Beltway got him there too.) I do wonder, though: If everyone was required to run a small business for a year or two before they could be allowed to run for political office, my goodness, what a different and better country this would be.