It shouldn’t really be all that much of a surprise that access to capital is the only tune President Obama seems to know when it comes to small businesses.

There are more than 27 million small businesses in the country and most of them don’t rely on debt financing beyond their credit cards for much of anything. Most of them bootstrap their way to success.

It’s an interesting lesson in the way that small business policy often has very little to do with real small businesses, don’t you think?

It seems pretty clear that the Obama Administration wants businesses to start hiring again and that they want that to happen really badly. The President has been doing a certain amount of campaigning to let citizens know what he’s been doing to deal with an unemployment rates that is stubbornly hovering at around 10%. It’s [...]

One of the unfortunate things about the monthly jobs numbers released by the Labor Department is that they only present half the picture. That is why the quarterly Business Employment Dynamics data, which was released last week for the third quarter 2009, can be so very useful. From this latest data release we now know [...]

Economic development types, especially those in chronically depressed areas and in rural areas, will be interested to know that, according to newly released research, entrepreneurial activity is negatively impacted by the presence of large, entrenched companies within the community. So much for “smoke-stack chasing.” The research paper in question, entitled New Business Clustering in U.S. [...]

A few weeks ago, the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship held a hearing on the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) National Broadband Plan and its promise (or lack thereof) for small businesses. At the end of that hearing, Chairwoman Mary Landrieu (D-LA) announced that she intended to hold another hearing during which she wanted [...]

It seems as if it was broadband week on Capitol Hill, as both the House and Senate Small Business Committees played host to meetings to discuss high speed Internet access and its impact on small businesses. Over in the House, Committee Chairwoman Nydia Velázquez convened a hearing last Wednesday that was immediately striking because it [...]

As I listened, I realized that there was one thing that I was hearing and one other thing that I was not hearing.

What I heard was this: ladies and gentlemen, what we are describing is the future of doing business. Technology will change the way we operate, as we become able to accomplish more with our lean, über-efficient operations. We invite you to gaze upon the future of small business.

What I did not hear was this: oh, by the way, operating in this lean and efficient way will mean we will probably find it unnecessary to hire as many people to staff our firms as we used to.

Meanwhile, everywhere else you look — whether it is at social safety nets or whether it is at a National Broadband Plan or whether it is at the push to increase U.S. exports — there appears to be no place in Obamaland for the sturdy American microbusiness.

In many ways, that really doesn’t matter.

Microbusinesses have managed to grow in number and increasing importance in the U.S. economy without a shred of support from the federal government and I would imagine they will continue to do so.

On the other hand, I’ll confess I’m disappointed.

During his State of the Union address earlier this year, President Obama announced his goal to double U.S. exports within the next five years. It seems a laudable goal for a CEO-in-Chief. The economy has been pretty much in the tank since before Obama took office. The job market is only just starting to show [...]

If you were placing bets with yourself about which Small Business Committee would venture to hold a hearing once the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) released its broadband plan, your wait is over. Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship Chairwoman Mary Landrieu (D-LA) convened that hearing at the end of last month. For the most [...]