Small Business Bailout Considered By Obama Admin.

washingtonpost.com:

The Obama administration is developing an initiative to take money from the $700 billion program for the banking system and make it available to millions of small businesses, which officials say are essential to any economic recovery because they employ so many people, according to sources familiar with the plan.

Read the whole story: washingtonpost.com

Comments

[tkondaks]

Here's all you have to do to stimulate small businesses:

1) 80% of the 15.3% FICA tax goes towards Social Security contributions for the self-employed (i.e., the owner of the small business). Let him put ALL of that amount in his own I.R.A.

2) Allow all small business owners to be taxed at a flat 17% rate.

[einstein10]

"Goldman’s cost of capital was also helped by government guarantees provided on about $30 billion of debt the firm issued between November and March."

How about the cost of capital for small businesses?

"Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is poised to report the largest profit since it set earnings records in 2007" .

[curiousasheck]

Why should the Government charge interest or collect taxes on these loans when they can just print money at will?

[hey0there]

I don't understand our government's point of view that globalization is a good thing. if the cost of globalization is recessions/depressions that last twice as long and occur twice as often, then the cost is too much too high.

[einstein10]

There is NO level playing field for business in this country, everything is in favor of big business, large corporations, multinational corporations, big banking and government bureaucrats.

What about the small businesses and sole-proprietors, the self-employed, and full-time free-lancers?

[DomainDiva]

I am a self employed free lancer doing a technology start up as well. I am sure if I even went near any government money I would be arrested for trespassing.

[Tulka2]

Nothing would build the American economy like a single-payer health care system. We are supposed to bow down to "public option", but that's just the right-wing framing the debate again. In other words, pull left for single-payer and we might get a public option.

The right wants to quibble about Canada's health care system, but they never mention that Canadian banks are the most sturdy in the world. Hello?! Canadians have a stable economy BECAUSE of single-payer.

[americaforme]

Short term revolving debt, like credit cards, oh, thats a winner. More bank slavery to come. What if all this, and the consumers are not hood winked into this grand stand play? What then?

[marc1antony]

I love Obama, but job wise - about time!

[jane gutowski]

Are the businesses that supported Obama going to get twice the help that the other businesses get like the stimulus bill records indicate? This government is getting bigger and more corrupt by the day.

[petridish]

Ummmmmmm....BINGO!

Do not make more government programs, do not make more government bureaucracy.

Our society already has the tools needed for any change.

We have bankruptcy court for the irresponsible and we have institutions in place to help the people. Why not use the tools we have instead of trying to make a better wheel at GREAT expense.

On this one the Administration is on to something, about time.

[Samalabear]

Put single-payer on the table and have CBO score it. This is something that will definitely help small business and jobs now and into the future. We need to think beyond the credit card and loans, especially since you, Mr. Obama, failed to give any leadership to the credit card bill. It is already proving to be a disaster with those who still have or can get credit.

[Tulka2]

Canada's economy is the sturdiest in this hemisphere and that owes a lot to single-payer... as well as the same bank regulations we have.... but of course, Canadians have demanded bank regulations be ENFORCED.

[YewNeekId]

Won't happen. This guy is spending money like a gangsta with a pocket full of stolen credit cards. But there's nothing to show for it.

Results are what count Obama - not gum flapping - and the result of all the spending is inconsequential. Until you can produce results, no more throwing around billions like they're nickels.

[getoffmedz]

So impatient.

[worldb]

"This guy is spending money like a gangsta with a pocket full of stolen credit cards. But there's nothing to show for it."

...right, only spend our tax dollars on wars and corporate subsidies

[CAP6]

It seems to me we must come to the realization we as a country have made some critically fundamental mistakes over the last 30 years or so and begin to reset our economy on the foundations on which to build long-term sustainable economic growth. We have exported most of our manufacturing and industrial infrastructures, a huge portion of the science and technology sectors, and are now becoming a significant importer of the the most critical commodity of all, food. Now we are sitting back and waiting on the government to provide the answers for a crisis the government is largely responsible for creating and worse, we are looking for solutions from the very individuals some say are principally culpable for helping to create this crisis. We can choose to continue down the path our leaders have chosen for us and that is to continue spending and borrowing our way to economic ruin while the "official" unemployment rate soars past 10% on it's way to some dangerous & historical high or we can learn to EARN our way out of this crisis. We must invest in ourselves by investing our limited resources into our remaining manufacturing and industrial infrastructures, while striving to expand both. Think about it, China has become our banker on the back of it's manufacturing infrastructure and exports. Time to return to economics 101 and make our best effort not to fail this time. This is not about Democrats or Republicans, it's about us, Americans all.

[GoodFeathers]

As long as we don't balance the consumer based economy with the manufacturing based economy, we doomed to failure. These stimulus are like pruning a tree and not getting to the root cause. We are like a homeowner who has no job and brings in no money but spends money that he doesn't have wildly on projects like big swimming pool, gardens with exotic plants, air conditioned dog house, etc.

We need to "MAKE" things here in the USA, not just assembling parts manufactured in other countries.

[Eraser]

Very much correct ColgneCitizen

The economy needs large restructuring. You can't have a population of 300 million based on consumption, you need to produce something, but all our production has moved offshore.

Globalization has been the largest scam ever perpetrated by business. It's not about anything altruistic, business simply seeks to get around labor laws. It's created systemic unemployment that we're seeing. This depression is nothing new, people at the bottom really have not recovered since 2001, it's only the people at the top are seeing the problems we've been facing for almost ten years now.