Maybe I am a cock-eyed optimist.

It’s terrible to have to say this but I’m almost afraid to get my hopes up in thinking that maybe Senate Small Business Committee Chairwoman Mary Landrieu is different, less wedded to the idea that bigger is automatically better and that microbusinesses are worth nothing more than lip service.

I’ve been in this spot before and always wound up being disappointed.

I’ll have to confirm this but it looks like the lone real friend to microbusinesses that there was on the House Small Business Committee is gone — not bumped by losing an election but, presumably, senior enough to be considered by the leadership as wasted there. So, I’m not looking for any miracles from that end of the world.

And that’s why Mary Landrieu’s interest in microbusinesses, in discussing whether the SBA should have more precise size standards than “large” and “small,” in the pride expressed by U.S. soldiers in Iraq about what a difference microenterprise development made there and how much of a difference it could make here …

Well, of course, all that got my hopes up! I’m not made of stone, you know.

We’ll have to see how she does, won’t we?

For more information:

Roundtable Archive: Investing in Small Business: Jumpstarting the Engines of Our Economy
SBA Office of Advocacy
House Small Business Committee