Which candidate is best for small business?
As a leading voice for small business success, one of the factors I track and report on is public policy. In my advocacy role, I support those issues that benefit small business and oppose those that don’t, regardless of party origin.
Every four years since 2000 I have compared the policies of the two presidential candidates with regard to their alignment with small business success. Here are comparisons for the top small business issues:
Jobs = customers
President Obama’s economic recovery plan – including spending hundreds of billions on a government approach to economic growth – has failed as a jobs creator. And yet he continues to advocate more government “investment” in the economy. Mitt Romney has stated that the best way to grow the economy is to support small businesses in their efforts to grow jobs and thus create more customers for everyone.
Taxes
The largest drain on a small business’s precious working capital is taxes. President Obama thinks of tax reform as a way to redistribute wealth from “millionaires and billionaires,” but small businesses will become collateral damage. Mitt Romney proposes tax reform where job creators pay higher taxes based on their success, plus a broader tax base so more Americans have a vested interest in our country’s future.
Health care
Obamacare will cost double the initial estimate, plus impose new fines, new taxes and onerous compliance requirements on small businesses – without benefiting them. But perhaps the worst of this law is it puts small business owners in conflict with their employees and their own growth plans.
President Obama is committed to his namesake law. Mitt Romney promises to repeal Obamacare. When we polled small business owners about Obamacare, 78% agreed with Romney.
Fuel prices
Gasoline costs small businesses and their customers almost twice what it did when Barack Obama took office.
All of the increase isn’t Obama’s fault, but presidents can influence oil prices. When crude topped $140 a barrel in 2008, President Bush simply announced he wanted to remove the offshore drilling ban and oil prices dropped like a stone.
President Obama has taken no steps to reduce oil prices – rejecting the Keystone pipeline, for example – because his alternative energy policies only work when the cost of carbon fuel is high. Mitt Romney has promised to pursue the full potential of America’s domestic energy sources.
Write this on a rock... Mitt Romney is the only presidential candidate who knows what it takes to make a payroll every Friday.
Jim Blasingame is creator and host of the Small Business Advocate Show. Copyright 2012, author retains ownership. All Rights Reserved.
