Women-Centric asked me what I would do if I were President of the US to jump start the economy. It’s actually quite simple. Eliminate as much uncertainty as possible.
If we know that new job creation is the engine to drag our economy out of the deep recession ravine we’re in, then we need to recognize that new jobs are dependent variables; they are created as the result of confidence and some level of predictability about the future.
According to the Small Business Administration, over 80% of new jobs are created by businesses with five or fewer employees, not large multi-national corporations. If policy makers continue to entertain ill-fated policies like:
- Implementing a value added tax
- Requiring payment of social security and unemployment insurance for part-time help including babysitters and the high-school kid who mows your lawn (California is attempting to pass this legislation right now)
- Arbitrarily raising the minimum wage
- Mandatory healthcare participation raising healthcare costs 30-40% per year for business owners
- Carbon taxes hidden under valiantly-named legislation that claims to protect the environment
- Increasing marginal tax rates
- Increasing property taxes
- Increasing the taxes on every type of fuel while restricting supply to drive energy costs to new heights
No small business owner who wants to survive will hire new staff in this uncertain and self-defeating policy environment.
Slash spending to eliminate the need for these insane attempts to strangle every marginal dollar possible from the geese that lay-the-golden-job-creation-eggs.
The passing of Obamacare against very strong negative public sentiment proves that Washington is not interested in supporting small businesses. The playing field has changed. The rules we operated by in the past no longer apply.
But no one knows what the new rules are because they keep changing. This uncertainty means small business owners who have going concerns and are about to retire will close businesses that took decades to build, instead of trying to sell them to continue in a great tradition.
According to Philip J. Clements, CPA, JD and Managing Director of Cathedral Consulting Group, over $4Trillion dollars of annual GDP must change hands or close their doors in the next ten years. In this unpredictable environment, what would you do?
Small business owners started their companies because they are fiercely independent. They wanted to work for themselves, not the government. And if small businesses die, kiss new job creation good-bye.
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Well said! We need government to slow down and stop proposing new things.
“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself”