If this Presidency gig bombs as much as it appears to be, Barack Obama, who just celebrated his 49th birthday (as a U.S. citizen, I might add), will have plenty of post-presidential time to wonder where he went wrong. But having observed Presidents dating back to Nixon, there still is time for Obama to reverse the economic malaise we find ourselves in, and it starts with an exhaustive review of how his policies impact small businesses.
The July jobs report was devastating not only because the economy shed 131,000 jobs, it was jarring because job growth among small businesses is almost non-existent. Part of that is because small business owners don’t know what other government imposed costs linger around the bend — whether by legislative thrust or administrative fiat, which appears to be the way “cap and trade” will eventually be imposed. It’s already expensive enough to hire and employ people, but Washington keeps on piling on.
The Administration reportedly is mulling a “Main Street” bailout package, but its time would be better spent tweaking its budgets and programs in ways that are small business friendly. First and foremost, it might rethink its pending policy of lumping people who make $250,000 or $300,000 a year, many of whom run small businesses, with the super rich when it comes to allowing the Bush tax rate cuts to expire.
It might also help if Obama hired a person who actually has run a small business, someone who can recommend ways to alleviate the litany of costs imposed by the federal government and inject some certainty into business planning. At the moment, the only certainty is that more pain is on the way, which does not create an optimal hiring environment. Even if you have to make adjustments in ObamaCare, or restrain the regulators that are writing the rules, do it.
By the way, would somebody in Washington tell the people who run the U.S. Postal Service that perhaps a more effective way to reverse revenue losses might be to reduce the cost of business postage, not raise it again? Thankfully, businesses do not have this “luxury,” only the common sense to remain price competitive. Why don’t you surprise everyone by demonstrating a little business sense and give lower prices a try just once?
But I digress. A little introspection by the Obama administration would be much more helpful — for the President and the nation — than blaming his predecessor. Mr. Bush had his flaws, but he did not make a habit of passing laws that had employers wondering “what next?” Here is a constructive idea: instead of hiring 30,000 more IRS agents, how about hiring thousands more to serve in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office? Then we could start clearing the backlog of patent filings that represent new discoveries and potential business ideas.
There is still time for the President to change the trajectory of the economy. Although he’s just barely over 40% in terms of his public approval rating, he’s still slightly higher in the voter’s esteem than Ronald Reagan was at a similar point. The circumstances aren’t exactly the same, but Mr. Reagan would go on to win 49 states in his re-election bid, largely because the economy made dramatic improvement just in time.
One thing Obama has going for him is there is a lot of money sitting on the sidelines. If we can find a way to unleash it, perhaps we can still experience the kind of robust growth that typically follows a steep slide and is accompanied by strong job growth. We must create hundreds of thousands of new jobs each month to make up for what we’ve lost, and the nation’s small businesses have to be a big part of it.
But as long as small businesses continue to fret about the high cost of job creation, there will be subdued job creation, especially when many of those costs are imposed by government. One haunting question for the “stick-it-to-business” crowd: how do you expect to stimulate employment when you’re increasing the degree of difficulty for employers?
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