One of the important principles of life as a federal policy advocate is that you can’t burn your bridges.

However annoying lawmakers may be sometimes, eventually you’re going to want something else from them. That makes it tough to say what you really think about what you didn’t get today.

You’re not allowed to point out that said lawmakers are being unfair. It would be unacceptably short-sighted to go public with your opinion that the lawmakers in question are themselves frighteningly short-sighted.

Naturally, telling them that they are a pack of hypocrites is out of the question.

You can’t say any of that stuff — even when it’s true. Especially when it’s true.

Instead, you have to talk about how disappointed you are at the outcome and mention that you look forward to working with lawmakers to address the remaining issues in the legislation in question.

Health care reform is a good example.

Truth to tell, everybody set about health care reform in the wrong way. In a more just universe, small business owners would have had the earliest and most influential input as policy makers were making policy.

As a group, they were yelling for reform first and most consistently. A few years ago, those in the know were saying that health care reform was “essentially a small business issue.”

That was before the insurance industry lobbyists stepped in and started throwing their weight around.

All of which leaves us right where we are, confronting the ultimate irony in which we are staring health care reform in the face but it is reform that essentially skewers the very stakeholders who have been hurt the most and the longest.

And the folks on the front lines in Washington, who have been carrying the small business health care message for years, can’t even say so.

‘It’s a tough job but somebody’s gotta do it.’