Small Business: Recovery will come from Main Street, not Wall Street

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Sam Jones is the Region VII SBA Administrator.|ret||ret||tab|

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Checked your stock portfolio lately? Your 401(k)? Do you listen to the business report on the evening news hoping for a 10,000 Dow Jones Industrial Average? Are you waiting for Wall Street to tell you that the 2000 recession has ended, unemployment is below 4 percent and all is right with the world? |ret||ret||tab|

A recent survey put lost jobs in Missouri at a nation-leading 77,000. Our governor and General Assembly have just wound up a contentious special session trying to maintain essential government services in the face of a revenue shortfall measured in hundreds of millions of dollars. |ret||ret||tab|

What are we going to do about it? By that, I do not mean an editorial or royal "we." What are we you and I going to do about the economic recovery? Some are waiting for Wall Street to declare a victory. Others are taking the recovery from Main Street to Wall Street. I invite you to join this latter group.|ret||ret||tab|

President Bush recently signed tax legislation that allows businesses to expense capital expenditures of up to $100,000 per year, four times the old limit. What could, or should, be the economic impact of this new higher limit?|ret||ret||tab|

There are 140,000 employer businesses in Missouri, 97.7 percent of them with fewer than 500 employees. In addition, there are 200,000 self-employed in small businesses. If only half of Missouri's small businesses took advantage of half of the increased deduction limit for capital expenditures the sales tax alone on the investment would be a whopping half billion, with a "b," dollars in the coffers of state and local government.|ret||ret||tab|

Based on historical job creation data from the U.S. Small Business Administration, the economic activity generated by half of Missouri's businesses using half of the new capital expenditure deduction would create 105,000 new jobs, wiping out those lost in the recession and creating an additional 28,000.|ret||ret||tab|

When you consider that these sales tax and job creation projections are only for the first round of business investment, the impact as that investment circulated throughout Missouri's economy would quickly replenish the treasury in Jefferson City. Similar investment nationwide would return us to budget surpluses almost overnight.|ret||ret||tab|

Small businesses account for 70 percent of new jobs created. We are going to grow this economy out of recession one job at a time. We are going to take it to the street Main Street. Wall Street can't help but notice.|ret||ret||tab|

In the current movie "Bruce Almighty," God admonishes mankind: "You want a miracle? Be the miracle!" When it comes to economic recovery, small business can be the miracle.|ret||ret||tab|

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