Comments on: Hillary on Small Business

By: Electrableu

Electrableu — Tue, 06 May 2008 17:52:24 +0000

We are primary owners of three restaurant businesses, and I was leaning towards voting Hillary. But I too scoured her site for information directly addressing small business and found little there. The data are staggaring as to just how important small businesses are to the US economy…e.g., accounting for 45% of total US private payroll and creating 60-80% of NET new jobs!! See this site for statistics from SBA:

http://www.sba.gov/advo/stats/sbfaq.pdf

I was truly undecided between Hillary and Barack until the last few days and Obama’s much clearer plans for small business ended up swaying me to vote for him. SEE his small business plan here:

http://www.barackobama.com/pdf/SmallBusinessFINAL.pdf

Includes very important elements of access to capital and tax relief in addition to addressing healthcare and incentivizing innovation. Especially in a down economy, small business needs goverment backed access to capital because traditional banks are VERY risk averse to giving loans to startups on any reasonable terms when we are in a recession…. yet we’ll never get out of a recession without harnessing the unique ability of small business to be an engine of job creation!

Clearly the Republicans “trickle down” focus does not help small startups, and Obama seems to be the only Dem with a real small business plan.

By: Barack Obama on Business Issues

Barack Obama on Business Issues — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 14:45:48 +0000

[...] is the best option for business owners in the coming election, it seems far more thought out than what we saw from Clinton. Rather than bolstering minority-owned businesses with government contracts, Obama seems to be [...]

By: thursday

thursday — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 16:36:10 +0000

The problem with home-based businesses, as well as freelancers, is that they continue to get lost in the shuffle. From a political stand point, it’s almost as if they aren’t ‘real’ businesses, which I think is shameful. There are ongoing issues with home businesses effectively being double-taxed in some areas, but not enough attention is being paid.

I’m hoping to get up posts shortly on McCain and Obama’s stances, as well.

By: Erika

Erika — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 01:56:12 +0000

Her list sounds impressive, and on the surface, like good initiatives, but I agree with your last point regarding the health care issue. I also wonder where home-based businesses would fall in her proposed changes, and where McCain and Obama stand on the issues that affect small businesses.