Because my greatest fear is what the next president is going to do to the middle class and America's small businesses, I constantly watch coverage of the Republican primaries. Of course, one of the most popular subjects is the economy and jobs. But I've noticed something -- I have not heard one Republican presidential candidate mention the fact that small businesses create virtually 100 percent of the net new jobs in America. In fact, I have not heard one Republican candidate mention any plan to create jobs that focuses on America's 28 million small businesses.
It's both amusing and frustrating.
We know from U.S. Census Bureau data that small businesses create more than 90 percent of the net new jobs, that they employ half the private sector workforce, that they are responsible for more than half the gross domestic product and 90 percent of U.S. exports. And yet we sit here and watch politicians talk about the economy and jobs and no one ever mentions any of those statistics.
If we're being realistic, small businesses are not that important to candidates running for President of the United States. Small businesses don't contribute to campaigns the way that Fortune 1000 firms do. Small businesses don't have an army of lobbyists bending the ear of each candidate the way corporate giants do. That's why anyone running for national office will focus economic stimulus on big business. Most say they won't cater to the big boys. They pay lip service to small businesses, saying that we need to stimulate the middle class. Truth is the middle class is going extinct and politicians couldn't care less.
The reality is that Fortune 1000 firms in American have not created one net new job in more than 30 years. If anybody running for president really wants to create jobs and bolster the economy, they're going to need a plan that involves America's 28 million small businesses. But I don't expect that to happen. I'm not naive enough to hold my breath.
Bottom line is that small businesses create all the net new jobs but not one GOP candidate has said they would reverse the Obama administration policy of giving federal small business contracts to Fortune 1000 companies. The U.S. is the biggest customer in the world. A free and easy way to create demand for the nation's chief job creators is to purchase good and services from small businesses. But every year billions of dollars in federal small business contracts is awarded to Fortune 1000 firms and nobody blinks an eye.
If one of the candidates really wants to take President Obama's job, they would talk about how Obama broke his promise to stop giving small business contracts to corporate giants. If you want to see who these guys really are, ask them one question: If you're elected president, will you reverse the Obama administration policy of diverting small business contracts to large businesses? Let's try asking that simple question and see what they say.
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However, he may be correct when he says the Rupubs. haven't mentioned direct Gov't. payouts or stimulus to samll business. That would only do more damage than has already been done.
Granted, front groups for big corporations as well as both Democratic and Republican puppets, give lip service to small business. That includes the worst corporate puppet of all, Obama, who's White House is virtually run by Goldman-Sach employees.
The fact is that the only regulations they are interested in removing are the ones that would wipe out competition and leave a handful of bloated conglomerates running the country. The orgy of mergers that created a few super-banks "too big to challenge" began with deregulation under Clinton and continued in earnest under Bush. Hundreds of community and regional banks disappeared in four years. Community banks did not create the financial catastrophe of the last decade, and the community banks still existing are not the ones begging for corporate welfare.
Any small businessman with any sense is terrified as we all should be, of a world without protections from large corporate predators.
Ron Paul is the only non-corruptible candidate.
Business pays way too much in tax and so do you. If taxed on business are raised you will not get a break. The government will continue to borrow much more than they bring in and they will print more Dollars. The new Dollars flood the market and make your wages lower, your savings lower because everything you buy costs more.
Why not stop fighting business and start fighting the system?
Ron Paul wants to stop the Federal Reserve's madness.
There will be a surge in investments, drilling for oil and dumping laws that prohibit businesses to operate effectively. The stock market will rise with a trust in the America, without Obama running it into the ground.
You spout the same tired talking points about the liberal media, just like the GOP claims that corporate tax rates need to be lowered so businesses will create jobs. Corporate taxes are at the lowest rate in over 60 years, so then why is unemployment so high?
You have come up with the same tired smoke and mirror lines that other liberal mdia and pundits have. obama is going down, down ,down just like his popularity ratings, right into the sewer where they belong.
What financial regulations have been enacted? Dodd-Frank is simply a tweak and slight pull-back advised by the same Goldman-Sachs and JPM employees who deregulated under Bush and Clinton, and were then hired by the White House.
Obama is getting more corporate money than Republicans. They are smart enough to know he's their boy. Would you quote Obama's speeches for proof of substance? The man is neither a Democrat nor a Republican. He is a clever panderer, a man without background or talent or vision, created by PR, his speeches an agglomerate of phrases taken from focus groups.
When Walmart eats up the small main street businesses in all the small towns it not only reduces the price of the product by volume, alone, but also reduces the average income. The big thing that seems to be ignored is that the divide of incomes of the owners to the workers is important.
So, what do 'we the people' really want? Less cost and less income or more equity of the wealth? Once there as a 30% division between the CEO's and the workers, and now it hovers between 150%-300% division.
While we might pay less for product, are we as well off and is it important to us--who are not the CEOs?
What is the definition of a small business? Where do we draw the line as opposed to a Big Business?
Second, don't you think it important to make some kind of distinction between a 2 person mortgage company and a Regional Grocery chain? Or a small restaurant and a large auto dealership? Perhaps there are several different sub groups?
And as follow up to the second question, how do you define the various sizes of small business? Is it based on number employees, Dollars of Sales or something else?
http://web.sba.gov/faqs/faqindex.cfm?areaID=15