5 Reasons Small Business Owners Should Give A Damn About The Election

Many small business owners have already given up all interest in this year’s presidential election — forget about congressional and municipal elections, they’re long gone. I’ve heard plenty of claims of the inevitability of politics: “All the candidates are the same,” “I’m only one voter,” or “No matter what happens, it won’t affect me.” That’s a load of hooey, though. I could have used up pages and pages to tell small business owners why they should care about the presidential election, let alone their local elections. I’ve limited myself to five, though, and all of them boil down to the money in your small business’ account.

1. Health Insurance: Whether or not you believe the government should provide universal health care, both Democratic candidates have proposals on the table. It’s going to cost quite a bit though — you’ll just be paying taxes instead of health insurance premiums, if you listen to most of the broad generalizations. It’s up to you to decide which expense will be bigger though (and either way, I’d think it’s in your best interest to campaign for the cheaper option for you).
2. Access to Capital: The SBA does a lot of work to help small businesses get the capital they need to expand. But John McCain has proposed tax cuts that guarantee a budget crunch — programs like the SBA are guaranteed to feel some money pains.
3. Tax Reform: Everybody seems to be promising tax cuts (from a cure for the recession that we may or may not be in to a way to encourage business growth). I do like the idea of a tax cut, admittedly, but I think that anyone who’s had to jump through the hoops of the Schedule SE and the other various forms a small business owner has to figure out, I’d almost prefer tax reform. If I could save a couple of the hours I spent last weekend on figuring out my taxes, I could have used that time to earn more money — a roundabout tax cut.
4. Industry Regulations: There are plenty of small businesses in industries with plenty of laws — think about lawyers, home builders and other businesses you see on a regular basis. I know I don’t want to vote for a candidate who will require more bureaucracy for my particular line of work, and I can’t think of a business owner who would.
5. Small Business in general: None of the candidates are really talking about small business issues specifically, and personally, I’d like to know why. There are close to 70 million small businesses according to the National Small Business Association (this number varies — mostly upward — depending on how you define a small business) and that’s a significant number of votes that the candidates have practically ignored.