Is Obama Keeping His Small Business Promises?
Something very prevalent in the world of small businesses is their inability to get loans. The lack of liquidity in the credit market makes it hard to get a loan, even for small businesses with the best of credit. Since many believe small businesses can propel the nation out of the recession, I wondered what President Barack Obama’s plans were to address the issue.
The New York Times’ video library has a March 2009 video of Obama outlining his small business initiatives (click on the image for the video). Things I learned?
- even though the Small Business Administration guarantees $20 billion in loans, only $10 billion has been granted because of bank’s hesitance to give loans.
- small businesses account for 1/2 of all private sector jobs in the country
- small businesses also account for 70% of all new jobs in the last 10 years
- Obama proposes tax cuts and initiatives for small businesses
- Obama wants to reduce capital gains taxes to zero for small businesses. It is currently 15 percent, according to Investopedia. “Capital gains, the profit realized on the sale of a non-inventory asset that was purchased at a lower price” (Wikipedia).
But how is the president doing in keeping those promises? PolitiFact, a cool program created at St. Petersburg Times and a 2009 Pulitzer Prize winner, is keeping tabs. According to their Obameter, which keeps track of more than 500 campaign promises the O-man made on the campaign trail, President Obama has only kept one out of 14 promises regarding small businesses. There has been one compromise (the stimulus plan reduced, not eliminated, the capital gains tax) and two promises in the works.
I wonder when the other 10 issues will be handled and what their outcomes will be. Me and the 25.8 million businesses in the country.
[...] the video from the last entry, President Obama had this message for small business owner’s across the nation: I want to [...]