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In an try to distance herself from the financial destroy she had a hand in creating, Vice President Kamala Harris is positioning herself because the small enterprise candidate. That’s a great technique, provided that there are greater than 33 million small companies in the US, and tens of hundreds of thousands extra if you happen to embrace entrepreneurial gig employees.
However one can’t simply wave a magic wand and change into one thing. Between the Biden-Harris insurance policies over the past three and three-quarters years, in addition to her marketing campaign proposals, it’s clear that Harris is, in reality, the anti-small business candidate.
Whereas it’s at all times difficult to be an entrepreneur, small enterprise house owners have had a very tough go over the past 5 years. They bore the brunt of the COVID-19 shutdown mandates, whereas they noticed large companies get extra help and thrive.
HARRIS’ STRUGGLES WITH MICHIGAN’S WORKING CLASS VOTERS PROVIDES OPENING FOR TRUMP, GOP
Popping out of COVID, the Biden-Harris insurance policies helped to stoke historic inflation, which created an immense set of challenges for small enterprise house owners (in addition to Major Road Individuals).
It’s estimated that the Biden-Harris administration elevated the regulatory burden on small companies to the tune of $1.7 trillion, costing small companies greater than 300 million hours of compliance time.
This can be why the NFIB (Nationwide Federation of Impartial Enterprise), which places out a month-to-month small enterprise optimism survey, has seen that index keep beneath its 50-year historic common for 33 consecutive months.
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One other small enterprise blow comes from Harris’s stance on impartial work. In 2021, the Biden-Harris administration overturned a Trump-era impartial contractor rule, and in 2024, the Biden-Harris Division of Labor put in place alternate, restrictive requirements for contractor work. This issues to not solely these entrepreneurs who need to work flexibly, but additionally to small companies that depend on contractors.
Harris has additionally been clear that she is a supporter of the PRO Act, which incorporates a lot of the anti- impartial contractor language from California’s AB 5 rule, which goals to remove work flexibility on the nationwide stage.
Harris’s flagship proposal purportedly demonstrating her help of small enterprise rests on growing a startup expense credit score. Not solely is that this proposal opaque, however additionally it is centered solely on new enterprise entities, and fully ignores America’s greater than 33 million current small companies.
Her different proposals are instantly damaging to small enterprise house owners. She has communicated that she is going to let the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act expire, which gave many small companies a tax break and included a professional enterprise earnings deduction for sure small companies that may also expire. She has additionally mentioned she plans to boost earnings tax and capital features taxes, amongst different proposals, that may see current small companies paying extra of their hard-earned cash to the federal government.
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When it comes to laws just like the Company Transparency Act Helpful Possession Data (CTA BOI) rule that targets small companies as monetary criminals, Harris has proven no solidarity with small enterprise house owners. There’s a CTA BOI delay invoice caught within the Senate, in addition to one other delay and two repeal payments proposed in Congress, and she or he might lend a pro-small enterprise voice to those efforts if that had been really her precedence.
Small companies are the spine of the financial system, and so they should be handled with respect, not used as a political pawn. Kamala Harris’s actions are very clear, it doesn’t matter what she says, she is not any pal to small enterprise.