Small Business Needs Leadership in Washington
In my last post, I presented the fact that American banks were actually cutting back even more on loans to small business. Then today I read a post by Arianna Huffington, on the Huffington Post, where she discusses this same issue, plus, the lack of leadership in Washington to resolve this problem. I have included some excerpts from Arianna’s post below, but I would encourage all small business owners to read her post in its entirety.
—The president, in a recent radio address, said he would take appropriate steps to “encourage” banks to meet their responsibilities. Encourage them? Pundits encourage while presidents execute…that’s their job!
—The president’s plan of action for getting small business back on track financially is to convene a conference in the coming weeks. Instead of taking decisive action, the most powerful person on earth is going to “convene a conference.” Here is what Arianna had to say:
Of course, we all know that in Washington-speak ‘I’m going to convene a conference’ is somewhere up there with ‘I’m going to establish a blue-ribbon commission’ in terms of kicking an issue down the road.
But, is there anything the president can really do, other than use moral suasion, to sway the behavior of our financial system? Of course there is! How about this:
—Open up the Fed to full transparency. This should have been a condition for the president appointing Bernanke to a second term. Instead, the Fed is now fighting an audit proposed by Congress—and the White House is silent.
—The president also appoints the heads of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (supervises commercial banks); the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation; the head of the Office of Thrift Supervision (regulates savings and loans); the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission; and the head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (oversees derivatives). If these powerful people cannot move the banks to support small business…it is time for the president to make some re-appointments. That’s what would happen in any successful American business.
—More importantly, the president picks the person who runs the Treasury Department. Here is what Adrianna said about this appointment:
…the Treasury Department…is not legally mandated to be overseen and staffed by former Goldman Sachs executives and their friends. And there is nothing in the Constitution that says the Treasury Secretary has to be in near-constant contact with the heads of Goldman, Citigroup, and J.P. Morgan, often taking their calls late at night.
Perhaps this is an appointment that needs to be reconsidered now.
—The president also has the power to regulate. Instead, he has chosen to allow the proposals for financial regulatory reform that are working their way through Congress to be riddled with loopholes and exemptions favorable to Wall Street.
Here is Arianna’s closing statement:
…if only Barack Obama would stop acting like a pundit, egging on change from the sidelines, and start acting like the president, dictating the game from the middle of the field.
Every small business in America has a congressional representative and two Senators, who have been elected to serve and represent those who put them in Washington. Now is the time to tell these representatives, as well as the president, that it is not Wall Street, nor K street who deserves their allegiance—it is the people who elected them, and we demand to be represented. It is up to us to demand leadership. It is also up to us to reappoint our representatives at the ballot box, it they don’t do their job.
Read Arianna’s entire post here.
NOTE: This Friday, Arianna, along with Howard Dean, will take part in a debate on C-Span with Dick Armey, and John Kasich on the question “America’s Future: Can Capitalism Survive? This is something that should interest every small business owner in America.
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