Small Business owners are seeking a solid footing. Uncertainty reigns despite the fact that some questions have been answered. Small business is still teetering on the precipice of the financial cliff.
Small Business
Leah Goold-Haws of LGH Marketing Strategy is a proponent of incentives for small business which reward growth.
If small business owners are bogged down with regulations, taxes and constraints preventing capital acquisition, business expansion becomes extremely difficult.
Wafa Kanan of Unique Image, Inc. supports the fact that small business owners play a major role in the American economy. Small business represents 99.7% of all employer firms and employs over half of all private sector employees. 65% of the net new jobs during the last 17 years were created by small businesses.
Sources of Major Concern
ObamaCare continues to throw new curve balls. President Obama announced a new executive order this week directing doctors to question patients about guns in their homes and report that information to the government. Please explain to me what guns have to do with my visit to the doctor for a flu shot. Drawing a correlation between flu shot and gun shot is really a stretch.
The initial ObamaCare publication was 2,700 pages. Since that time, another 13,000 pages of regulations have been added. What small business owner or even private citizen has time to study 15,700 pages of regulations on one issue? Give us the cliff notes version, please. How can we be expected to play by the rules if the rules are so long, cumbersome and confusing that no one reads or understands them? Maybe that is precisely the point of having such a long document.
Remember the protests when the new tax code was revealed a decade or more ago? Déjà vu.
Uncertainty
Small business owners are adaptable, resilient and innovative. Once we know the rules, we adjust. The problem is that the rules keep changing.
The trend seems to be more government involvement rather than less. Small business owners are appealing to the government. “Tell us the rules and step aside so we can run our businesses.” It is imperative that American consumers have a feeling of stability. When consumer confidence is high, people are happy and they spend money. When consumers are uncertain, they spend on basic necessitates and wait for clarity.
Debt
Who was the Navy veteran who was upset about the statement that the government is spending like a drunken sailor? He protested that statement was not fair to the sailors. “Drunken sailors stop spending when they run out of money.”
The Associated Press reported on January 14, 2013 that the government is seeking to raise the $16.4 trillion federal debt ceiling immediately. President Obama warned the Republicans not to insist on cuts to government spending in exchange; “Social Security benefits and veterans’ checks will be delayed” without the increase. Runaway, frivolous and reckless spending causes problems at every level from personal through companies to the government.
Steve Haas of HubSpot’s article Stop Spending Other People’ Money urges debt reduction from the top of government down through businesses to personal levels.
Until we get spending under control, we have no hope of a sustained recovery at any level. Let’s start on a personal level and use our influence to encourage responsible government all the way to the top.
Good news is that small business owners are intelligent, innovative and resilient. We may be forced over the fiscal cliff but we will grab a parachute on the way down and land on our feet.
Comments