Government regulations are overwhelming to small businesses, and while large corporations based upon their economic size and undue influence upon the regulators can still achieve their economic-development objectives, small businesses cannot. It should come to no surprise that our City remains, for the most part, within the same development footprint that existed over forty years, while certain interests in the Stateline area can proceed with new large development. When is the last time you have witnessed a physical expansion of a small restaurant or grocery store in our community? Not only does government make small business growth difficult, if not impossible, but government becomes the instrument of well funded large corporations. One wonders whether the increase in regulations itself is not designed to suppress small business development so that large corporations can eliminate economic competition. Our form of government is based upon an economically independent middle class. While the writer above discusses the economic impacts, the political implications of the continued decline of an independent middle class is great and will lead to the demise of our democratic government.