The Candy Man Went to Washington

Well much has happened since I last wrote.


First on February 13th the Day before Valentine's Day fox Business spent the day in the store doing stories on chocolate and Valentine's day. You can see one of the stories on my youtube channel if you click the below image.

Or click each of the videos seperatley below.
  video 1  video 2   video 3  video 4  video 5

Normally I keep this blog cute and sweet telling what has happened in the store but this blog I will end slightly political being the candy man went to Washington.

On February 15th I left for DC to lobby for small business rights.

Thanks to the JB2B and SBAC I was fortunate to have this opportunity.  A friend asked why I was taking my time to do this my response was simple if you don't speak up you can't complain that you are unhappy how the system works.

I have many political thoughts but I want to keep this blog relatively politically neutral place since as State Representative Dold said most of the country is between the 30 yard lines. And the reality is that people come to the store for confections not for my political thoughts. But the main reason that I went to DC is because the health care system is broken.

Elliot Richardson from the SBAC did a great job bringing up the Illinois legislation that his group is trying to get passed in Illinois, but when I had the opportunity to speak with Sol Ross the Director of Business Outreach, Office for Intergovernmental and External Affairs, Department of Health  and  Human Services I felt it was my obligation to speak from the heart.

I expressed to him that a 12,000 page bill was passed without being read. He then showed me the cliff notes of the bill which is safe to say is so long it probably was not read either. I went on to tell him my thoughts on health care reform.

• We agreed that currently the Supreme Court would decide if the current legislation was a violation of state rights but since a bill was passed I suggested the following solutions to an ugly problem
• Pass legislation to get rid of pre-existing conditions.
•  Allow businesses either in the same industry / similar industries to join national coops. This would for example allow all candy companies regardless of size to join together so I could buy insurance with Hershey and Mars which would reduce everyone overall costs by creating larger pools.

He was polite and may have been giving me lip service but I felt that I needed to tell someone my thoughts. Perhaps it sounds to simple but then again sometimes big problem have simple solutions.

While in Washington I also had the opportunity to talk to Senator Durbin,

while he and I did not agree I felt it necessary to tell him my thoughts on bail outs and government spending.  I had the opportunity to talk with  Representative Schakowsky, 
who offered information on how to access government bids. Additionally I met Senator Landrieu from the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship and a slew of aids some of which also offered ideas on how to bid on government contracts.

In the end a personal highlight was giving a packet of letters from my son's first grade class addressed to the President to one of his aids.

The life of the candy man is sweet.

PS I did leave a sweet impression on everyone I met when I gave them a chocolate business card.

PSS was this too political? If so sorry but I had to get it off my chest -- next topic something sweet!