Barack Obama and small businesses

In the end, Barack Obama walked it like we all new he would. But one of his biggest hurdles en route to the White House was not his skin tone, his tentative links to ‘terrorists’ nor his liberalness, but a plumber called Joe.

John McCain was thwarted by a number of factors, not least his age, his track record of agreeing with W and his insane choice of running mate in Sarah Palin; but it was the Republicans’ playschool handling of the US economy that did it for his campaign in the end.

The only weapon in McCain’s otherwise empty economic armoury was Obama’s pledge to increase taxes for people earning more than $250,000 a year (he says he’ll cut taxes for everyone else).

This enraged ‘Joe the Plumber’, who confronted Obama at a rally and complained that he would have second thoughts about growing his business if the wealthy are going to be taxed more.

McCain seized on this and for the rest of the campaign tried unsuccessfully to label Obama anti-small business.

But is he..?

Of course we won’t know until he starts doing stuff. Being pro-small business is an even bigger vote getter over there than it is here, so McCain and Obama were keen to cosy up to them (despite economists’ insistance that neither of their tax proposals are feasible).

If there’s one thing Obama is good at it’s talking, and he certainly made it sound like small businesses are about to get a great deal. For example, he says he will eliminate capital gains tax for small businesses and start-ups, and fight for a better deal for American companies trading overseas.

He will execute the $700bn financial rescue package won by George Bush, he’ll cut taxes for low and middle income earners (and raise them for rich people), he’ll invest in renewable energy and invest in healthcare plans for employees.

It’s impressive-sounding stuff, and ignoring for a moment that Obama has just fought an election and much of what he says is hard to achieve, this sounds a lot better than what small businesses in the UK are being offered.

So far we’ve had money going to banks to help them lend to small firms (give us the money you fools!), a commitment for government groups to pay suppliers on time and the postponement of laws committing businesses to flexible working practices.

Obama’s presidency-winning ticket (changed halfway through from his original ‘we shouldn’t have gone to war’ tack, which might have lost him the election) is so much more direct and substantial than what small businesses in the UK are being offered it’s no wonder Obama is popular.

What Gordon Brown, Peter Mandelson and Alistair Darling must remember is that we in the UK will be having an election too very soon, and on current form they are nowhere near winning the small business vote. 

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By Dan Matthews  on   Nov 05,2008

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Keywords

Barack Obama    small businesses    Alistair Darling    Gordon Brown    Peter Mandelson   

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