Sunder Ramani has a message the California State Legislature needs to hear about the sad state of things for small businesses in the Golden State.

“California didn’t end up here by accident,” he said about legislative policies. “This was a well-thought-out, driven campaign to get us where we are today.”

With so much hitting small businesses in the so-called Golden State, NFIB California called on one of its own to summarize the problems. The best speakers are always those who know firsthand what they’re talking about. And by that definition, Ramani is a leading expert on the small-business economy in California.

He came to California with his family from India. He started working at a very early age pulling weeds in his neighbors’ backyards for 50 cents an hour. Today he runs a media company and manages his real estate holdings, but his previous careers included commercial printing, commercial aviation, construction, business and land use consulting, as well as board service on more than 70 nonprofits. board service.

Business has been his life. “I’ve lived it; I’ve had employees; I’ve signed the front side of a paycheck and the back side of a paycheck, as opposed to just reading about it and theorizing and being philosophical where we are in history.”

Tim Taylor, NFIB California’s chief legislative advocate, joins Ramani for this highly informative podcast that ranges on a variety of issues Ramani brings his informed perspectives on:

• The cost of providing health care and how much longer he can do it.
• The sadness he sees in his restaurant-owning friends
• The availability and attitudes of the new post-COVID workforce.

But it’s his own employees he’s most concerned about and what the state is doing to make it more difficult for them to live here. “That [its policies] has an impact on those people that require every last dollar that they make towards living, so we make energy very expensive, we make housing very expensive, and we made access to jobs nearby where they live very expensive, and then [we’re] one of the higher tax states.”

Click the arrow below to listen to NFIB California’s Leadership Council Chairman Sunder Ramani. Click here to listen to all past podcasts.