INVESTING IN SMALL BUSINESS KEY TO OUR FUTURE

BY DAN DANNER

Two recent polls confirm that Americans understand how important small businesses are to our country.

The first, from Rasmussen Reports, shows that 92 percent of Americans view small business owners favorably, and entrepreneurs who start their own businesses are right behind at 88 percent. CEOs of major corporations are dead last at 22 percent.

A second survey done for the Kaufmann Foundation gets right to the heart of the matter. Nearly 80 percent say that entrepreneurs are more important job creators than big business, scientists and government (which came in last). Nearly 40 percent more Americans prefer policies that encourage people to start their own businesses rather than government efforts to create new jobs.

For those reasons it's disappointing to see so many of our tax dollars going to just about every program imaginable, rather than to the entrepreneurs who can lead us out of this recession.

Consider this: Government spending just since the beginning of this year includes a $787 billion stimulus bill and more than $450 billion to fund government programs including thousands of earmarks.

The current budget process shows no end to increased government spending. The president's budget proposed a 12 percent increase in non-defense spending, and while Congress talks about cutting, their plan proposes a 9 percent increase. The budget resolution pro poses $3.5 trillion in spending and a $1.2 trillion deficit for 2010.

The five year period covered by the current budget resolution doesn't include any meaningful cuts in government spending yet the budget proposes to reduce the yearly deficit from $1.2 trillion in 2010 to $598 billion in 2014.

Without spending cuts this can only happen in one of two ways: Expand the economy to generate more revenue, or raise taxes. The budget proposes $360 billion in tax increases including a tax on energy through a cap and trade system that would cost about $3,000 per household.

By 2014, budget numbers project that the overall national debt will be about $11.6 trillion, up from $8.8 trillion in 2010. The total debt held by the public would be 67 percent of the value of our entire annual output of goods and services.

While the president recently announced a $15 billion increase in funds for the Small Business Administration's lending programs, only about 1 percent of all small business financing comes via the SBA. Small business owners, who create about 70 percent of the net new jobs, need better access to credit to keep growing. And we need them to lead us out of the recession. But with so much government spending and so little help focused on small business how will we see the economic boost we need to improve the budget outlook?

The current fiscal crisis was caused by too much debt, spending money we didn't have on things we didn't need, and banks making loans they couldn't finance. Why are we taking the same approach with government spending? We should be investing in the small businesses that Americans trust to create jobs, expand our economy, and generate more revenue to keep taxes manageable.

Dan Danner is president and CEO of the National Federation of Independent Business in Washington, D.C.

 


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