We have help for banks now. Why not help for small businesses and startups?
The senior senator of NY, Charles Schumer, has proposed a $700 million small-business stimulus plan.
The proposed program would help businesses in several ways including:

waive bank service fees on loans
give the Small Business Administration (SBA) more money for staff and loans
 raise the limits on SBA and let the SBA offer loans for refinancing.

According to the Senator, the program would allow the SBA to help with up to $25 billion in “affordable” loans and generate about 700,000 jobs nationwide. The SBA doesn’t make loans but guarantees payment to a …read more

I am sure many of you have heard about the two recent government reports which reveal (surprise!) fraud and errors in the Small Business Administrations ‘ contracts.
It uncovered millions of dollars in federal contracts that were supposed to go to small businesses but were awarded to companies are really big businesses, including John Deere and Xerox.
Frankly, I am disgusted.  And as I wrote before, the new SBA chief has no small business experience.
So someone please explain to me, why do we allow the SBA to even exist?  I’d love to hear your thoughts.

I’ve been wondering about your opinion on something.
If you haven’t heard, on June 25th President Bush appointed a new chief of the Small Business Administration (SBA). The thing is, for the third time in a row, the appointed chief, Sandy Baruah, has very little small business experience. 
Not only has he never run a company of his own, his closest connection to small business would be a consultant job for a Performance Based Consulting Group in Oregon. The group helped improve medium and large-sized firms.
The SBA has constantly struggled with hitting targets and has had tons of problems with loans for …read more