Politico: A majority of Americans are not optimistic right now, but small business owners provided an even grimmer assessment of the economy and their own business fortunes in a new national survey of small business owners conducted on behalf of the U. S. Chamber of Commerce's Institute for Legal Reform.
In fact, in our survey, 78 percent of small business owners say that in the next year the national economy is likely to either remain stagnant or get worse. A substantial percentage are not sure if they are going to survive. Close to one-third of business owners, 32 percent, tell us they are not confident in the future of their own company.
Clearly, business owners are hurting. In focus group after focus group, the pain that small business owners face is all too clear.
"I don't know if I'll even be in business in four to five years," one Florida business owner said last month during a focus groups - reflecting as much uncertainty as fear.
Business owners are skeptical of "help" from Washington. In fact, our research indicates that business thinks Washington is so far removed from their real-world concerns that they won't know how to be of any practical assistance.
By an eight-to-one margin, small business owners say that Washington's policies and regulations these days are more likely to hurt than help. This view is consistent across-the-board. Democrats, independents, women and minority small business owners all agree with this assessment of Congress.
Similarly, when asked whether government is doing too many things better left to businesses and individuals, or whether government should do more to help solve problems, by two-to-one, business said government is trying to do too many things better left to the private sector rather than too few things. |
