House Democratic Leadership Snubs Small Businesses

No telling whether Sam Graves (R-OH) will emerge as Committee Chair a stronger leader for small businesses than he has proven to be as Ranking Member, but one thing is for sure, the House Democratic leadership continues to snub small businesses in not giving Nydia Velazquez (D-NY) the boot. Having proven herself completely without regard for the interests of small businesses, she yet remains the highest ranking Democrat on the House Small Business Committee, swapping places with her heretofore side-kick Sam Graves. She steps down to Ranking Member just as he steps up to Chair.

It's hard to imagine that Graves could do a worse job than Velazquez. Where in all the concern over a dismal economy, and confronted with the evidence that small businesses, especially the newest among them, are the true drivers of job growth, is there leadership enough to stand up for entrepreneurs?

It is high time that we make a shift from an economy dependent upon large corporations (and their periodic bailing out) toward an economy of self-reliant, independent, innovative, doers. It is high time that we cease embracing the ideas of an old economy, and start looking towards a new one, where college graduates consider themselves as likely to start their own firms, or join a startup, as they are to send around a dozen (or a hundred) resumes to name-brand firms with roots generations old.

There is balance to be regained: not in seeking to destroy those corporations, but simply in levelling the playing field so all companies compete on their merits, regardless of age or size. There are too many inequities in today's system, that stifle creativity, innovation, and job growth, that won't be fixed simply by bending the president's ear to the claims, and requests, and demands of corporate behemoths.

Tomorrow belongs to the entrepreneurs! Today is time enough to realize that.