The Debate on Small Business

President Obama's performance improved quite a bit in the second Presidential (town meeting) debate. But I felt it was just about even.

For him to throw a knockout punch I believe he needs to counter his opponent's argument that "Obama will hurt small business and Romney will help it".

Romney and Ryan got up on stage and claimed that Obama will raise taxes on small business. Ryan cherry-picked a statistic by claiming that 53% of "small business income" will be subject to increased taxes. They claimed that this will result in more lost jobs. Finally, they claimed that Obamacare will be a job killer.

Here's how I would argue their false assertions:

1. Ryan's 53% claim has already been debunked by factcheck.org. He included, in his definition of small business, large hedge fund companies. The number of small businesses that will be affected by higher taxes are relatively few (about 3%), as ONLY profit over $250,000 will be subject to increased taxes.

2. But even with some increased taxes and new health insurance requirements, does that kill jobs? Ask the small businesses that have gone under in the last decade. I've asked them and they have pointed to 2 different factors. The first is the decrease in consumer spending.  The second is the increase in rents.  Nowhere is taxes or healthcare mentioned. If less people are coming into small business stores to buy, or people are buying less, there will be less staff working at the business. Furthermore, if the reduced traffic causes losses, the business closes.

So what caused this decreased spending? If you correctly state the Bush Great Recession, you win the debate point.

Also, I've heard from at least 2 businesses that landlords are charging astronomical rents. Why are they doing this? Because they can! Because there are large businesses waiting in the wings. I can give you an example. A strip mall near me in Rockville has a bagel restaurant, hair salon, and furniture store amongst other things. There is also a TGI Fridays. All of the businesses in this mall, with the exception of the Fridays, are going to be taken down in order to put up a new Walmart. Conclusion: we are in an era of domination of large business over small business -  and it is being helped by the greed of some landlords.

So, in summary, the notion that Obama's polcies and plans hurt small business are bogus. Mitt Romney does not want to acknowledge this because he is hell-bent on blaming Obama.

Mitt Romney says he understands business. What he really understands is the big business "mindset" - the mindset of maximizing profit by minimizing expense, no matter how much profit, no matter where the expense comes from. Think about this - what does the right wing dislike? They hate the minimum wage. They hate labor unions (even the small "David" unions that go against the "Goliath" businesses). They hate anti-trust laws. They hate regulation. They claim all is anti-free market, anti-freedom, anti-America. But think - how much of what they want to do away with are those things that have a benefit to you and me?

We've come a long way in 230 years - from ending slavery to ending child labor to controlling monopolies to giving workers better conditions to the New Deal to Social Security and to Medicare. And we're still going in that direction. The claims that "business will be hurt" go back to the arguments to keep slavery. Yet we've survived quite well with every law that improves our lives.

And when has business gone bad? Think of all the major slowdowns: 1929, 2008. Taxes caused this? Of course not. It was bad business decisions caused by simple greed of large business to maximize their profits, the profits of those who sold us the bad decisions, and the heads of the companies who got either a huge salary or a golden-colored parachute.

So if you hear that our President hurts small business, think about the facts, and think about your values. Do you want a world of the big business mentality, or do you want a world where all citizens of this country can pursue the true American dream?

Thanks for reading.