How Congress Is Trying to Destroy Small Business

I've written before about how Democrats have an opportunity to make an issue out of defending small business interests in the face of Big Business interests. And if you read this New York Times piece today, you'll realize this small business/big business chasm doesn't only mean making an issue out of how Wal-Mart destroys local business.

As the Times reports, a study released today by the Kauffman Foundation found that "almost one in five Americans who filed for personal bankruptcy protection in recent years had operated businesses - small companies, home enterprises or start-ups - within two years of filing for bankruptcy." Here's the kicker: because many of them had incorrectly filled out their paperwork and because of a computer software oversight, the government mistakenly counted them as individuals, not businesses - and that means the entire public rationale that we were fed about the credit card industry-written Bankruptcy Bill is all but debunked.

You remember the arguments - bought-off Members of Congress of both parties kept telling us that we needed the Bankruptcy Bill to crackdown on what they portrayed as lazy deadbeats, even though the data showed that most people were forced to file for bankruptcy because of high medical bills, death in the family, job loss, or divorce. But as the Times reports, "instead of cracking down almost entirely on careless consumers who cannot pay credit card bills, the study indicates the legislation threatens to hobble untold numbers of entrepreneurs and small-business owners caught in financial setbacks." The bill could very well "have damaging ramifications for the nation's entrepreneurial culture."

So here we are, months after the passage corporate-written bill, and we finally see the real truth that most consumer groups warned about: Congress passed legislation to enrich its big-time credit card donors at the expense of everyone else. The only silver lining is that Democrats who courageously voted against the Bankruptcy Bill now have a chance to use their vote to make inroads with the small business community. The more our side exposes the GOP for their anti-small-business agenda, the better.

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