Despite calling small business the “anchors of our Main Streets,” economic data released today make it clear that the policies of the Obama Administration have left small business treading in rough waters.  In its monthly Small Business Economic Trends Report, the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) reports that small business optimism has declined again, sinking to recessionary levels.  Small businesses cited weak sales, taxes, regulations and red tape as factors contributing to the continued economic uncertainty.
 
NFIB chief economist Bill Dunkelberg commented that policies coming out of Washington, DC are not helping reverse the negative trend:

“The failure to understand why small business owners are not hiring or investing has resulted in a set of policies that have not been very effective, and Main Street is suffering.  The icing on the cake: the growing debt, large deficits, threats of higher taxes, regulations being spewed out by state and local administrations, and the uncertainty of the new health care law—is it any wonder that optimism is down?”

Another day, another report and yet another reminder that Democrats' 2009 stimulus plan was a failure.  As the chart below displays, today’s 9.1% unemployment rate is well above the 6.7% rate Democrats promised by now if their stimulus plan passed.  The data reflected in today’s NFIB report leaves many wondering whether it will “take years,” as the President suggested yesterday, to get the economy back on solid footing and allow small business to innovate, expand and create jobs.

Source: Department of Labor unemployment rate data and Obama Administration January 2009 projections (in “The Job Impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act”) 

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