Monday, April 8, 2013

REDEFINING SMALL


On ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos", Greta van Susteren brought up the talking points of "job creators" and Washington hurting "small businesses".

Without defining how she categorizes what makes a business "small", she offered the following.

"We're strangling small businesses, I mean, no one's paying much attention to these small businesses, the regulations that are strangling them, some are laughable and silly, but they have profound impact on the job creators, those who are making jobs. They can't afford to hire people to do them."

The Small Business Administration (SBA) views 500 employees as a small business for most industries. Using a very different yardstick, the ACA(Obamacare) considers businesses with 50 or more employees large enough to require them to provide healthcare to their staff. Additionally, the smaller the business, the more ACA tax credits they get for offering health care to their employees.



In an extremely rare inquiry into what one means when they use the abstract rhetoric of "small business", George Stephanopoulos asks van Susteren if some businesses cut off their work force at 49 employees in order to avoid Obamacare responsibilities. She does not respond by defining what constitutes a "small business". Rather, she avoids the definition entirely, and offers more abstract rhetoric...

"Instead of looking at just numbers, if you actually talk to them, a lot of them are struggling with this, they don't understand a lot of those things that happen, they don't understand a lot of things that happen in Washington. They're very cautious because they see a real dismal economy out there, and that does have an impact."

Though no one pointed out that van Susteren first claims small businesses are being "strangled" by regulations, then claimed that "small business" owners aren't hiring because they "don't understand", Paul Krugman points out "If you actually talk to them, that's not what they say."

But the crucial question of who "they" really are is virtually never addressed despite endless rhetoric about the plight of "small businesses". The term itself is extraordinarily misleading. Intentionally. The term "small business" conjures up the image of a "Mom and Pop store". Politicians rarely use that term however, since when they speak of "small businesses", they are including under that umbrella quite large businesses with up to 500 employees.

Of course very few people have actually given thought to just how do you really define a business as "small". You would be very hard pressed to find a random voter that thinks a business the size of a Wal-Mart store is actually a small business. What about 250 employees? 100? 50? 

Personally, I think that if your business is successful enough to employ 50 people, you are no longer a "small" business. 

But exactly what magic number of employees or annual company profit anyone uses to personally view any business as "small", the label is little more than an abstract impression. We root for the small business person to grow their company and be very successful. We love the narrative of rags to riches. We also don't define when riches have been more than adequately reached. Such a concept is contrary to the American psyche. As a result, we never speak of "medium" businesses. The general (political) references to business size in America is self-restricted to just small business and corporations.

Consider a handyman with one part-time employee, or a self-employed artist, or a small carpet-cleaning business with 4 employees, or a Mom and Pop store with 6 employees. These are truly small businesses. That huge gap between "small business" and corporation does a real disservice to every one of them. When we allow politicians to imply they are referring to THESE small business people when in fact their umbrella-term "small business" is speaking of large companies even bigger than a Wal-Mart store with up to 500 employees, we are all being duped.

I suggest that every time you hear a political talking head, or a politician refer to "small business", you demand from them a definition of that term before accepting the remaining rhetoric that follows.

Thursday, April 4, 2013

SEQUESTRATION SOLIDARITY


Patrick Murphy(D-FL) follows Tammy Duckworth, Chuck Hagel, Shuan Donovan, Maurice Jones, President Obama, Mark Begich and Claire McCaskill in forgoing part of his sequester-exempted government salary.

While most Congressional and administration staff is subject to pay cuts and furloughs as a result of the sequestration, the pay of actual Congressional members and administration officials is exempt from the sequestration cuts. Those listed above must accept their paychecks in full, then write checks to equal the cuts they vowed for themselves.

Some, like President Obama, are returning the percentage they promised back to the Treasury.

Others, like Patrick Murphy, will be writing those checks to various charities. In Murphy's case, he will write a check each month to a different Florida cause.

For all the talk about a bloated budget and government over-spending, I have to wonder if Allen West would have done the same had he won a re-election and Patrick Murphy did not replace him in Congress. I'm not aware of West having done that when he actually was in Congress.

After a prolonged contesting of the election results,
Allen West lost his House seat to Democrat Patrick Murphy.


Frankly, I don't know the political affiliation of HUD deputy secretary Maurice Jones, but there is a noticeable pattern in the eight people listed above who are vowing self-imposed pay cuts. Other than Chuck Hagel (and the unknown of Jones), the list is overwhelmingly made up of Democrats.

At the moment I am not aware of any others vowing such salary sequestration solidarity. Even despite the never-ending cry from the GOP about how government spending must be cut, then cut some more, that talking point seems to end when it comes to THEIR bloated salaries.