How is the Economic Stimulus Plan Viewed by Small Businesses?
Let’s face it, the small business owner is under a lot of pressure with the weak economy. Even in the best of times they have a harder time getting credit and now, that has nearly completely evaporated. Small business owners struggle to get by.
Now with over 1,100 pages, it seems like nearly no one (and that includes your congressmen and senators) has actually read the bill. But with President Obama addressing Congress last week there were no specific provisions mentioned there designed to really help the small business owner. For example, while Obama seems to have little regard for tax cuts, actually implementing tax cuts for small businesses would enable many to hang on during these difficult times. And by hanging on, more jobs are retained in the economy.
In a recent poll conducted by Merchant Circle over 10,000 respondents when asked about whether they approve of the stimulus bill overwhelmingly voted NO. Not a surprise really to those of us in the trenches with them. Too bad we are, once again, ingnored by our elected officials.
Obama’s Plans for the Housing Market - A Mistake?
With the incentive plan now passed, President Obama now turns his views towards the housing market. Certainly if the economy is to recover, the housing market, which started the quick downslide, must be addressed. The problem is that there seems now to be significant factions within the country that just hate the idea of bailing out people who failed to pay on their mortages.
This isn’t an easy situation but it does seem that if one of the major issues was the ARM rates underlying much of this junk lending suddenly rose significantly causing people who would have paid their mortgage to now be unable to, the solution should address the rates, not try to bail out folks who chose to stop paying.
Moreover, it’s unclear how you help a family who has been foreclosed on. Once foreclosure happens the family has to get out and it makes no sense to try to put them back into the home that has now been cleared of any possessions left behind.
In any event, there was a lot of chatter on talk radio today about the plan, much of it revealing a grow sentiment against the bail out ideas. We’ll stay tuned to see what happens next.