PUTTING AMERICA BACK TO WORK SHOULD BE TOP ECONOMIC POLICY

Americans got some bad new last Friday with the Department of Labor 
released the latest unemployment numbers. For the first time since 
1983, the nation’s unemployment rate hit 10.2 percent. That means one in ten workers in America are without work.

Nine months ago, President Obama and the Congress passed a $787 
billion stimulus package to help boost our sagging economy. And while 
economists and some news reports contend the recession is over – we 
aren’t seeing the jobs return.

As the national debate of health care turns from a boil to a simmer, 
it’s imperative that our national and state leaders begin to look for 
measures to help create new jobs.

That focus on job development should begin with looking at creating 
new businesses and helping small businesses. During the last decade, 
nearly 70% of all new jobs were created from firms with 50 or fewer 
employees. Many of the new jobs come from new companies, small or big, but they represent new segments of our service economy.

For example, look at the computer sector with the explosion of Yahoo 
and Google. Then you have smaller upstart companies in pharmaceutical research and development and we have the potential to drive new 
businesses through biotech and green energy. There is tremendous 
potential we just have to push it.

The key will be helping new businesses access credit in a credit 
market that is adverse to risk. The banks like to say on television 
they are loaning money – but you will learn real quick in the business 
world that access to credit for a business start-up, new product 
launch or expansion virtually doesn’t exist. The banks are loaning 
small business owners the money they need to grow.

One area that could help is providing Small Business Administration 
loans to new businesses. We should also look at having the Federal 
Reserve inject funds into more community banks that seem to thrive in 
the small business marketplace.

State leaders should take the money that Dell Computer is giving back 
to the state after getting nearly $200 million in incentives to build 
their manufacturing facility in Forsythe County only to close it four 
years later to the community college system to invest in the Small 
Business Development Centers.

The SBDC programs offer expert help to small business owners. They 
help them write a sustainable business plan looking at operational 
costs, capital needs, human resources and every major element of 
running a business. Providing additional resources to our community 
colleges will mean they have the ability to help the start-ups and the 
small business entrepreneur. We should also look at tax credits for 
new job creation – providing incentives to new businesses and small 
businesses for helping jump start our economy.

We need to get back to the basics in our economy and that means we 
need to focus on putting Americans back to work – and there’s no 
better place to do that than helping grow our nation’s small businesses.

CONTACT:

If you have any comments and/or suggestions for me, please e-mail me.