For numerous small business owners who are being heavily affected by the current economic turmoil, the road ahead remains tough. Though the Fed (with a lot of help from the media) has been all too happy to call an end to the U.S. recession, the statistics paint a grimmer picture: the rates of unemployment, home foreclosures, and bankruptcy filings are all soaring. This comes as the credit markets remain tight and the cost of health care continues to prohibitively climb.
With all the focus being heaped on government-sponsored economic stimulus, it would seem that the issue of small businesses should be front and center. After all, small businesses in the U.S. account for half of the GDP and over half of the nation’s employment. Shouldn’t the Administration in the White House be concentrating on easing the burden for the nation’s smaller companies?
So far real help has been slow in coming, and this raises an important question: Is President Obama really concerned about the plight of small businesses?
The answer, in my opinion… not enough.
Let’s look at the facts:
In a previous post, I pointed out that government money did not seem to be reaching the small businesses who needed it the most. But underlying this article was the fact that it was Senators John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) who worked to secure the 45% funding increase for the SBA’s core small business programs in the first place. Under the President’s plan, several small business loan programs were effectively reduced or nixed completely.
And then there is the recent annoucement that the Administration will ask Congress to raise the loan limit on the 7(a) lending program to $5 million; on the 504 program from $4 million to $5.5 million, and on the microloan program to $50,000.
This was a blatant nod to Republican Senator Snowe, whose support is crucial to the Administration in the area of health care reform- President Obama’s pet project. This seems more like political maneuvering rather than a serious commitment to helping small businesses.
In order to truly hasten an economic recovery, Obama may need to re-evaluate his interests and start showing small business owners and their employees that he cares.