[Podcast] SBA Budget Process, After the Snow

Posted on | March 15, 2010 | No Comments

Weekly microbusiness news podcast

Weekly microbusiness news podcast

As I mentioned in this week’s podcast, this week is Sunshine Week. I’m inclined to make a big deal about it because I just happen to like the concept. So, you can expect to hear a lot more about it from me this week.

Consider yourself forewarned.

About this week’s lead article, I’m also expecting to have a bit of followup that I can post about Congressman Mike Michaud (D-ME) and his crusade to get more funding for the SBA Microloan program. This was information that I had tried to get on Friday but didn’t hear from the relevant staffer until this morning. So, I’ll let you know what I find out.

Also in this week’s podcast, Plain Language might come to the federal government after all, and we’ll try one more time to improve the Regulatory Flexibility Act and strengthen the SBA Office of Advocacy.

And, as always, this week’s Policy Matters column.

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Category: Politics
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[March Poll] Do you care about tax simplification?

Posted on | March 10, 2010 | No Comments

Somebody asked me whether Americans care about “the tax mess” — that is, the ungodly wreck of a tax code that we are tortured with every year around this time.

It’s an interesting question for me, for two reasons.

Reason number one: I can say that I sure hope they care, since I was just talking about this topic and, specifically, the bipartisan legislation recently introduced by Senators Judd Gregg and Ron Wyden to fix it, in my newsletters and this week’s podcast.

Reason number two: According to the research paper I recently wrote for the Microbusiness Research Institute, more microbusiness owners care, and they care more, about tax simplification than they do about lower tax rates.

All things considered, that’s really something, all by itself.

So, if somebody asks me if Americans care about tax simplification, I’d have to say that I have reason to believe that at least 1 in 7 of them do — that is, the number of individuals out there who are running or starting small businesses (according to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor).

I also have a hunch, parenthetically, that you’ll find more citizens who care about tax simplification right now, while they’re wrestling with those ridiculous tax forms and the tortuous, incomprehensible instructions that often come with them.

The answer most people give to this question might be a little different in August.

Having said all that, and based on nothing other than being an American taxpayer, I would think that people do care about tax simplification — if, by tax simplification, they understand that we’re talking about simplifying the process of filing taxes, which is often much more painful than writing the check (or anticipating the refund).

Doing your taxes is one of those things that is similar to taking out the trash; nobody really enjoys doing it but we know it’s got to be done. Besides, when it’s finished, we get that pleasantly satisfied feeling of a yucky chore responsibly dispatched — at least, until next time.

But it transforms from being comparable to trash removal to being more comparable to root canal as your life gets more financially complicated. So, if you

  • run a business
  • have rental property
  • own stock in one or more corporations

or any number of other income producing activities, filing taxes can be simply awful.

Under those circumstances, who wouldn’t care about simplification?

But that’s just what I think. I want to know what you think. Hence, this month’s poll:

March Poll: Do you care about tax reform?

View Results

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February Poll results:

Last month, I was curious to know your opinions about the state of Congressional Democrats’ ongoing attempts to pass some sort of health care reform package.

You surprised me. Evidently, many of you are happier with the current reform bill (which is the Senate version) than I would have thought. Over half of you (53%) felt Congress should pass the bill it’s got.

Another 35% of survey respondents want health care reform but they want Congress to scrap the current bill and start all over again from scratch.

The third most popular answer, which wasn’t really all that popular (11%), was that health care reform is needed but only after we throw this set of bums out and elected a new set of bums.

I guess that option was a little too extreme for most people.

In any event, thanks for your votes, folks!


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Category: Rants and Ruminations, Regs
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Not so ‘fed up’ that they’ll do anything different

Posted on | March 9, 2010 | No Comments

Okay, I have a duel warning for you.

First: the following has very little to do with microbusinesses, at least, not directly.

Second: the following is something of a rant.

You know, it’s always interesting when politicians and pundits start talking about what the American people want. I’m always asking myself what they based those pronouncements on.

Clearly, nobody is talking about the way people vote.

Last weekend, Dan Balz (who is one of my favorite WaPo journalists) was writing about diseased Washington and why voters are ‘fed up.’

(Anybody besides me notice now many of last week’s problem children were New Yorkers? Rangel and Massa and Paterson, oh my!)

In any event, Balz writes that the unrelated events he notes, which rose to embarrass folks from both sides of the aisle, explain why “Washington is broken”:

They represent another stain on the political system at a time when leaders face a rising chorus of critics who see them as out of touch, insensitive to the lives of ordinary Americans, unable to work together across party lines and more interested in destroying opponents than in finding common ground.

Of course, finding common ground has become impossible, thanks to another trend identified by Balz in his article as:

an industry geared for only one thing, which is to win campaigns at almost any cost. Tactics include relentless attacks on opposing candidates, opposition research fed to willing media and then leveraged over and over to create negative narratives, and taunting e-mails and video advertising that denigrate the other side.

Their work is magnified by talk radio, cable news and blogs, and by political activists who demand more confrontation but never compromise. As long as control of the House or Senate is in question, which it now seems to be with every election cycle, this will prevail and likely overwhelm the more reasoned calls for cooperation.

I have no quarrel with any of these descriptions. As a voter, I think I can safely say that I am fed up, too.

The thing is, the folks I’m really fed up with are my fellow voters.

Here’s what keeps politicians from getting anything done: Because of the deep polarization that has happened in American politics, politicians have found that it works for them to campaign on keeping the other guys from getting anything done. They don’t actually have to get anything done themselves.

They can do that because, for all that people complain about a broken system in Washington where nothing gets done because of all the partisan bickering and sniping, what they really mean is that they want thing to get done in Washington as long as its the things that their team wants to do.

When it comes to those other guys, says the modern American voter, obstruct ‘em all you like!

When it comes to compromise, says the modern American voter, don’t do it, that would be selling out.

How do I know these things? I know them because, whatever people may say when engaged in interviews by pundits or surveys by Gallup, what they say with their votes is that they are easily manipulated, easily frightened, and have bought into this craziness where their fellow Americans of different political parties have somehow been transformed in their heads into enemy combatants.

You think voters are fed up? Don’t you believe it. If they were, they wouldn’t be applying right-wing and left-wing ideological litmus tests and bitterly complaining when elected officials are too close to the middle or aren’t fringe enough for them.

Grandma taught me to judge people by what they do rather than by what they say. If voters were really fed up, they’d vote differently.

The sickness is not just in Washington, it’s everywhere.

It comes from a culture in which people have increasingly grown more interested in winning fights and have increasingly grown less skilled at solving problems.

The fact is that the political consultants wouldn’t be recommending those slash-and-burn tactics that Mr. Balz describes, and politicians and campaign managers wouldn’t be using them, if they didn’t work.

The problem lies not in our stars, Horatio, but in ourselves.


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Dawn Rivers Baker, microbusiness journalistDawn Rivers Baker, aka The Journal Blogger, is the editor and publisher of The MicroEnterprise Journal, and the self-proclaimed Socrates of the small business blogosphere. See her official bio to learn more.


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