When we all finally make it out of the current recession, it will be small businesses that bring us out of it. Small business owners provide the financial power in our economy and employ most of our workforce. So it makes sense to ask small business owners what they think of our economy and of the President's plans to get it moving in the right direction. Business Week did just that (I think it may well be the first publication to do so, though I would be wrong) and the answers the magazine got are very interesting.
I don't do this very often, but this post is going to be very quote-heavy. I think it's important to hear less from me and more from the folks who are dealing with the President's economic foibles. Their opinions, mostly ignored in the public debate, are critical.
Interestingly, most of the people BW interviewed have a generally-positive view of the President. That's not to say they like his politics or his policies, though. They like him.
Jim Droney is willing to give President Barack Obama a chance. "He is, I believe, a good person," says the CEO of Mt. Lebanon Office Equipment in Pittsburgh. "But so was Jimmy Carter."
Mark Stevens, a marketing and management consultant at MSCO in Westchester, N.Y., has a similar reaction: "Give him a chance, of course. But I am concerned he won't give us one."
Opponents of the President should take note here. These guys still like the President, still feel he's a good guy. Attacking him is going to draw their ire. No one likes to see a good guy under assault. On the other hand, they're worried that he doesn't understand what it is they do.
Mark Stevens, a marketing and management consultant at MSCO in Westchester, N.Y., has a similar reaction: "Give him a chance, of course. But I am concerned he won't give us one." His main concern, Stevens says, is that the President does not understand or appreciate the risk-taking, small-government entrepreneurial mindset.
The big concerns these business owners have are the inability to get loans and the potential heavyhanded health-care reforms. Credit is a very big deal, and they're willing to lay some of the blame on the administration.
George Isaacs, president of JEDA Polymers in Decatur, Ill., has felt the credit crunch firsthand. "Our banker told us several months ago that they have no money to lend to anyone because federal regulators are telling banks to write down the value of all loans because of the poor economy," he says. "When a bank writes down a loan, money that would otherwise be available for loans must be used for the bank's capital reserve and can't be lent out."
Now, the TARP program set up by President Bush was supposed to alleviate that pressure by buying up all the bad loans and hanging onto them, but that plan went by the wayside pretty quickly. Now, we have a situation where neither the banks nor the businesses that depends on loans from those banks have any real idea what the government is doing, or intends to do.
And then there's health care. The very idea of government mandates has some in the article very pessimistic.
"If the health-care agenda gets rammed through Congress, I will seriously consider having to close my doors," says *** Olenych, who owns a small printing company in Virginia Beach, Va. "Maybe I could outsource to China?"
Olenych is not alone in his fears. Barbara Monteiro, owner of Monteiro & Company, a boutique book-publicity firm in New York City with five employees, also worries. "What concerns me the most is the possibility that Obama might insist that all businesses offer their employees health insurance. If a law to this effect is put in place, I'll have to greatly reduce my business," she says.
The article then says that small business owners tend to favor the public plan option, which would take the heat off of them. The only problem is that the public plan option will very likely require large tax increases that will hit them hard (since most small businesses fit into the "wealth American" class the Democrats so love to demagogue against). A smart Republican Party will have an option ready to put in front of small business owners that will allow for more individuals to get coverage and give employers greater versatility to find the plans that cover their employees at the best cost.
I highly recommend reading both parts of BW's series. Small businesses are going to need some room to get out economy moving again. It's clear that the President has no good idea how to do that so it will be up to us, as conservatives and Americans, to push for the right policies.