The super committee was so politically deadlocked this week that they called it quits early (just in time for Thanksgiving).
The delay makes no difference though -- whether it comes through mandatory cuts or congressional compromise, a $1.5 trillion cut to federal spending means that competition for federal contracts will heat up.
And with less federal money to be had, Fortune 500 corporations are going to stake claim over all federal contracts, which represent hundreds of billions in purchases a year. This is a disaster for America's 28 million small businesses, which employ more than half the private sector workforce.
The top 25 contributors to the members of Obama's debt super committee were an all-star lineup of corporate giants including Microsoft, AT&T, GE, Citigroup, Verizon, JP Morgan Chase & Co, Ernst and Young, Bank of America, Boeing, Dow Chemical, Goldman Sachs, and Time Warner.
The Washington Post reported last week that nearly 100 former congressional aides who had previously served for members of the super committee are presently working as lobbyists on K Street. These insider lobbyists are now employing old tricks to get their former bosses to support their new corporate bosses.
On the other hand, small businesses are not significant donors to these political representatives' campaigns. Small businesses also don't own properties alongside the Capitol and don't employ politically savvy former congressional aides.
Can you guess where small business interests register on these representatives' list of priorities?
When Ronald Reagan was president, the Small Business Administration (SBA) budget was $1 billion a year. That was 30 years ago; today the SBA budget is less than a billion. Under former president George Bush the government pretty much tried to eliminate the SBA by starving the agency to death, cutting their budget and slashing their staffing.
The next time Congress attempts a deficit reduction plan, I predict that it will likely propose either cutting the SBA's budget or eliminating the agency altogether (probably by combining it with the Commerce department).
It seems like a ridiculous idea -- the SBA's budget is less than one-tenth of one percent of the Pentagon's budget -- but politicians in Washington will never pass up any excuse to cut the SBA and therefore eliminate federal small business contracting programs.
And when Congress is facing mandatory cuts of $1.5 trillion over the next decade if they don't come to a bipartisan deficit reduction solution soon, many will find excuses to try and get rid of the SBA, under the banner of government-wide cuts.
This seems counterintuitive considering that the U.S Census Bureau has found that small businesses create over 90 percent of all net new jobs. Small businesses generate over half the GDP and 90 percent of U.S. exports. As our nation's main source of domestic job creation, small businesses deserve equitable treatment.
A logical, reasonable Congress would boost the SBA budget and boost all federal programs to help America's top job creators. But that's not going happen because Fortune 500 firms want every penny that the federal government spends.
So instead we're going to see more attempts in the future by President Obama and the next administration to use any excuse to attack federal small business programs.
What's it going to take for small businesses to finally have a voice in Washington?
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Um, where and when did Obama attack federal small business programs? I remember a good chunk of the stimulus was in the form of loan guarantees for small businesses. In fact, I'm fairly certain Obama is probably the most supportive of the SBA out of any president for the last 20 years.
This is some jaw-droppingly bad writing. You invent "attacks" out of thin air and then foreshadow "more attacks in the future". How about you name one attack on the SBA by Obama.
Just one?
The problem here is not the Obama administration, it is the entire system that elects people like Obama. And like Bush.
Obama's biggest political contributor was Goldman Sachs. How are they doing these days?
Bush's biggest contributors were oil companies. How did they do during his 8 years in office?
I think if you went back far enough, you'd find that the wig, cherry tree and denture lobbies did quite well during the Washington administration.
However, President Obama is far from saintly in terms of following-up on his promises to help small business. On the campaign trail in 2008, President Obama promised that "it is time to end the diversion of federal small business contracts to corporate giants." He has yet to do anything to such an effect, nor has he mentioned the subject again. (http://www.asbl.com/documents/20081007_Obama_Promise_Website.pdf)
In addition, the President has not honored more recent promises, to:
1) restore the SBA budget to pre-Bush levels.
2) restore SBA Adminstrator's cabinet membership
3) enforce a mandatory 5 percent setaside for women-owned small businesses
Of the $1.6 trillion spent on stimulus measures by the Obama adminstration, less than 3 percent was given to small businesses.
America never guarantees equality of outcome, but we do guarantee equality of opportunity. Well, we used to. We used to educate our kids, and we used to invest in the public infrastructure we ALL need to succeed. Corporate money has purchased our system and made it work for them, not for the people.
Socialism isn't the problem - even our Constitution mandates some Socialism (military spending, the Post Office), and you're daft if you think we could remain world leaders if we ended all public universities, public roads, police, and fire protection. It isn't a case of "running out of money", it's a case of paying the bills. The wealthy have gotten away with not paying their share, and it's time for that to stop.
http://wjmc.blogspot.com/2009/08/more-small-businesses-needed.html
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Maybe if small businesses stop pretending their interests and the interests of big business are the same. Maybe if small business start siding with the 99% that actually does business with them instead of siding with the 1% that actively tries to put them out of business.
If small businesses started supporting these sorts of things, they would probably see more income than a meaningless tax cut for the rich. Yet many times, the top marginal tax rate seems to drive their decisions, despite not being in that tax bracket.
Unfortunately, we're living in a dollarocracy where political decisions are sold to the highest bidder. Seems like the main fear from our political leaders is what the 1% stands to lose when we finalize cuts-- which is probably why I'm starting to really love the Occupy Protest. Except i'm thinking that OWS needs a more structured presence in our country. Perhaps our nation could benefit from moving off the bi-partisan standard if Occupy were to become a political party with explicitly detailed goals to benefit the lower and middle class. For me, the top two could be campaign finance reform and the end of federal contracting fraud.
I am not sure that the OWS people have investigated thoroughly enough yet to see that the campaign reform is key, that is how you cut off the corporations and rich from seizing elections.
Even if we did get some reform, the corruption would just morph into other schemes. We need to have some of these legislators put in jail, that will slow them down a little.
Unless products SOLD in the US are subject to the same constraints as products MADE in the US, there will be no job creation in the United States of significant effect. Small businesses thrive when big business payrolls provide discretionary spending money.
It could be that just requiring products SOLD in the US be made with the mandated Federal Minimum wage would allow some portion of domestic production of goods and services to be revived in the US.
If products SOLD in the US were subject to Environmental and Safety (OSHA) mandates, even more US jobs would be created. If all US mandated constraints on domestic production were required by offshore producers, the US could possibly be the economic power house it was in most of the 20th Century.
I submit that unless repressively low wages are not tolerated for products SOLD in the US, there can be no economic recovery.
There is no amount of technology that can overcome $14.00 a day wages in effect for many offshore products sold in the US. There is no amount of tax reduction for US manufacturers that will make up for the above advantages of offshore products.
I agree 110%.
Here's the fix: in order for small business to have a voice the phrase "not significant donors" describing them has to be replaced with a different approach. We need to totally eliminate campaign "donations" to politicians -- better known as "pay for play".
Please take a look at the Constitutional amendment proposed by Get Money Out -- http://www.getmoneyout.com/ -- you can sign their petition at that website.
"No person, corporation or business entity of any type, domestic or foreign, shall be allowed to contribute money, directly or indirectly, to any candidate for Federal office or to contribute money on behalf of or opposed to any type of campaign for Federal office. Notwithstanding any other provision of law, campaign contributions to candidates for Federal office shall not constitute speech of any kind as guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution or any amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Congress shall set forth a federal holiday for the purposes of voting for candidates for Federal office."