Gas prices at $4 a gallon, grocery bills through the roof – and now it's getting harder to find your local corner store or coffee shop. What gives? You guessed it: another round of Washington spending that only makes sense in their ivory tower.

The Biden administration's latest spending spree is drowning small businesses with regulatory burdens and rising costs they can't pass on to already struggling customers. The big guys – the ones with lobbyists, the ones who write the rules for Congress – are getting sweetheart deals from Uncle Sam while you and I watch our local economy die a slow death.

Let me break this down: when a major corporation gets subsidies or tax breaks that let them outspend their competition on everything from office space to marketing budgets, guess what happens? They muscle out the little guy. Meanwhile, the government talks about "supporting small businesses" while their policies make it next to impossible.

Nobody is going to tell you this on CNN. The real story isn't in the headlines: it's buried deep inside obscure reports that nobody has time for – or wants to read because they know it means more pain at checkout.

The REAL figure, the one hiding in plain sight but never discussed on cable news? Small businesses are being squeezed so tight, many won’t make it through this year. The big guys get subsidies and bailouts; your local hardware store or café gets nothing but a mountain of paperwork to comply with.

Who does this benefit? Not you. The answer is always the same: whoever wrote the laws that let them take advantage of these situations in the first place. It’s time for some honesty about who's really winning here.

The buried number – what your favorite shop needs to survive versus how much they can actually make under current conditions? Those numbers don’t add up. You can’t run a business if every dollar you earn gets swallowed by compliance costs or tax hikes that only the big guys have lobbyists to fight against.

So, who's protecting you in this mess? Nobody's going to do it for you – they're too busy selling you on their vision of America while ignoring reality. It’s time to take matters into your own hands and support those around you who are trying to keep things local and personal.