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Fiscal Uncertainty in Washington Shakes Small Business Confidence
FOXNEWS ^ | June 28, 2011 | Shannon Bream

Posted on 06/29/2011 3:18:17 AM PDT by Son House

“Traditionally, we are led out of a recession by small businesses hiring people and creating jobs, and that’s not happening in this recession,” says Dan Danner, President and CEO of the National Federation of Independent Businesses (NFIB).

...The report shows that small business confidence was down for a third straight month in May, and that only 5 percent of small business owners think now is a good time to expand.

Economist Martin Baily of the Brookings Institution says the lack of investment, hiring and expansion by small businesses is one of the reasons the nation’s economy isn’t recovering as quickly as some expected. Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows start-up businesses are at an all-time low.

“Even those that are starting are not hiring too many people,” Baily says.

Experts say Washington’s unresolved debt crisis – including questions about how to address the solvency of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security – is fueling a level of uncertainty that tends to bring many small businesses to a standstill.

“There’s enormous uncertainty about how the political process is going to grapple with those issues,” Georgetown University economics professor Brad Jensen says.

Economist Veronique de Rugy adds, “It paralyzes entrepreneurs and people who usually are willing to actually take risk and invest their own money in their business.”

While pundits, lawmakers and economists may disagree about how to resolve those weighty problems, there is general agreement that coming to some kind of resolution will allow small businesses – now waiting on the sidelines – to restart hiring and investing.

Jensen says finding long-term fiscal solutions would provide an “enormous” boost to small business confidence.

“Lifting this uncertainty is really key to empowering individuals and entrepreneurs,” de Rugy says. “Ultimately, they are the true actors of economic recovery.”

(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Front Page News; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: business; economy; fiscal; uncertainty

An article, likely hard to find outside of FOXNEWS, so there will be few Democrat supporters who get the opportunity to think through the problems the Democrat legislation has caused for a 'normal economic recovery' to occur.


'Lifting this uncertainty'?? Excessive government spending, regulation, and taxation, just what Americans had in mind by starting a TEA party, an organization believes in the Fiscal Responsibility, Constitutionally Limited Government, and Free Markets.


1 posted on 06/29/2011 3:18:24 AM PDT by Son House
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To: Son House

2 posted on 06/29/2011 3:21:31 AM PDT by Diogenesis (Nothing surpasses the complexity of the human mind. - Leto II: Dar-es-Balat)
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To: AdmSmith; AnonymousConservative; Berosus; bigheadfred; Bockscar; ColdOne; Convert from ECUSA; ...

Thanks Son House. I’d make further comment, but I’ve reached my irony/sarcasm bandwidth limit for the month.


3 posted on 06/29/2011 3:51:15 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (It's the Obamacare, stupid! -- Thanks Cincinna for this link -- http://www.friendsofitamar.org)
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To: Son House

These folks will lay someone off and work more hours themselves.


4 posted on 06/29/2011 4:07:22 AM PDT by Sacajaweau
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To: Son House

I suspect they`re holding of until after the election next year. They`re way too spooked by 0bama`s regime to take a lot of risks right now.


5 posted on 06/29/2011 4:35:30 AM PDT by ScottinVA (Imagine.... a world without islam.)
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To: Son House

I think it’s fair, at this point, to say that the GOP is contributing to the uncertainty.

If the House had defunded Obamacare, that would have restored some confidence in the small business sector. But they haven’t. In fact, they haven’t acted in any concrete way to indicate that they’re serious about reigning in the executive branch.


6 posted on 06/29/2011 4:58:48 AM PDT by Nickname
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To: Son House

I sold my business and retired in 1999. I have many friends who are small business owners. We communicate via email and phone. No one has any plans to hire or expand right now, solely due to uncertainty about the financial future. They are unwilling to bet the farm on a bunch of stuff and nonsense from nobama. Who can blame them?

Everyone is pretty much hunkered doing whatever they can to keep their nose above water. For some, unfortunately, it is a losing battle.

One of my friends recently said, echoing Kermit, “It’s not easy being a small business entrepreneur with nobama in the White House.”


7 posted on 06/29/2011 5:28:19 AM PDT by upchuck (Think you know hardship? Ha! Wait till the dollar is no longer the world's reserve currency.)
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To: Son House

Here’s a great speech by Cong. Mike Kelly-PA addressing exactly this issue.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEArFmRDtrw

IMO, there is a capital strike going on as a passive aggressive maneuver to destroy Obama’s chances at re-election. Small businesses and consumers are not growing or spending money so the economy is stagnant - on purpose. It doesn’t help that higher gas and food prices are cutting into household discretionary spending, but even before those necessities started to go up, people were tight fisted.

If a Republican gets elected president, I’ll bet we’ll have economic growth which will be off the charts. Businesses and people who have been holding back will cut loose - cars, houses, hiring, TV’s, vacations will all see huge increases.


8 posted on 06/29/2011 6:12:54 AM PDT by randita
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To: Nickname
If the House had defunded Obamacare, that would have restored some confidence in the small business sector. But they haven’t. In fact, they haven’t acted in any concrete way to indicate that they’re serious about reigning in the executive branch.

They have done absolutely squat. They didn't even repeal that asinine light bulb ban. This mess isn't going to get fixed. I repudiate the debt this government has encumbered upon me. I did not consent to it, and will not be enslaved to pay it.

Secession and reformatiion of a free nation sometime after the elections.

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. --Such has been the patient sufferance of these (states); and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of (the United States) is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states.

9 posted on 06/29/2011 6:39:22 AM PDT by ecomcon
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To: Sacajaweau

Work more hours? Many of them are already working 16 hour days. If they lay off any more than they have already, they are out of business. Plain and simple.


10 posted on 06/29/2011 9:47:17 AM PDT by Soothesayer9
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To: randita
Businesses and people who have been holding back will cut loose - cars, houses, hiring, TV’s, vacations will all see huge increases.

Not going to happen. Many of those businesses you mention have moved overseas. They are not coming back, regardless of who is president. The GOP will prop up some RINO like Romney and it will be business (of what little there is left by then) as usual. Businessmen arent stupid. They know the line between Dem and Repub is almost indistinguishable. Nothing short of a full blown internal revolution will roll back the damage Obama has done.

11 posted on 06/29/2011 9:51:49 AM PDT by Soothesayer9
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To: Son House

FOXNEWS reporting what has already been established oh about a YEAR AGO! =.=


12 posted on 06/29/2011 10:19:34 AM PDT by cranked
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To: Son House

While pundits, lawmakers and economists may disagree about how to resolve those weighty problems, there is general agreement that coming to some kind of resolution will allow small businesses – now waiting on the sidelines – to restart hiring and investing.


“some kind of resolution” will not do the trick..........


13 posted on 06/29/2011 7:06:10 PM PDT by PeterPrinciple ( getting closer to the truth.................)
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