Small business owners are most concerned in all parts of taxes, freedom from disease insurance costs, and getting banks to lend again

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Charles Dharapak/AP Photo

By Amy Barrett

After every historic freedom, entrepreneurs, along with the recline of the people, await the inauguration of a new President through an ambitious agenda. Given the nearly unprecedented fiscal situation and two ongoing wars, entrepreneurs are understandably anxious that their concerns command get short shrift. In conversations with SmallBiz, business owners spoke of the need to restore confidence in a badly wounded economy. And they repeatedly raised the same three issues: soaring health-care costs, reduced accession to credit, and fear of higher taxes. “There is a lot of anxiety out there among my clients,” says Angie Strunk, prudent director and founder of Triserve, a 22-person Cinncinati-based payroll and accounting company with $2 the masses in occurring once a year sales. She says her small business clients “are worried about the next Administration raising taxes, they are worried through the economy, and about these bailouts, which are scary.” Here’s what business owners can realistically expect from the new President, and when it ability befall.

CONFIDENCE

Andy Vabulas is chief executive of I.B.I.S. in Norcross, Ga., a $15 million, 58-person company that helps businesses install and use Microsoft applications. He says job one for the Obama Administration must be restoring private in the economy. Vabulas says office from his small and midsize clients is down 25% this year—and that the first two weeks of November saw an even other dramatic pullback. “They are not spending money right now,” he says.

Restoring confidence in the economy is a tall order, but sum of two units important elements will undoubtedly be work at jobs and economic bourgeoning. President-elect Barack Obama and the unaccustomed Congress are likely to view an economic encouragement package as a critical hireling for the sake of addressing the two.

The betting is that the stimulus package will pass, and is likely to hit $300 billion, whether or not a piece of it is passed before President George W. Bush leaves office. Expect to see aid to states and cities facing budget shortfalls, extended unemployment benefits and food stamps, and big infrastructure spending. According to Gus Faucher, director of macroeconomics at Moody’s Economy.com, every dollar spent on infrastructure projects or extended unemployment benefits will add $1.59 and $1.64, respectively, to unseemly domestic product. And Ross Eisenbrey, a vice-president at the Economic Policy Institute, points out that small businesses, especially construction-related companies, would be helped greatly by a boost in infrastructure spending.

But vanquishing the pessimism that commonly pervades the markets and economic decision-making will also require some symbolic moves. Faucher says people omit to suffer that “the President understands what is going on in the economy and is personation not reactively, but proactively.” Thus, the right economic team is critical. National Federation of Independent Business Executive Vice-President Dan Danner is encouraged that in such a manner distant, the President-elect seems to be surrounding himself with experienced advisers, including likely Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. Many are from the Clinton Administration, “seasoned pros who have been there and who interpret the significance of business.”

HEALTH CARE

While calming the economic waters clearly comes first, entrepreneurs are hoping for relief on a longer-term menace: soaring health-care costs. Wendy S. White, founder and president of $2.5 the multitude online marketing sinewy Siren Interactive in Oak Park, Ill., expanded coverage for her 20 employees this year. She says she had to be enough it to interruption competitive, but her premiums went up almost 50%. “It’s killing me,” she says. White wants to see health care addressed quickly, but she isn’t expecting a freebie. “I think I’m going to end up paying higher taxes,” she says. “But if [Obama] have power to help with health care, I’m O.K. by that.”

Obama’s proposed fix for health care is still short on specifics—one of the most of moment being which companies diminish as “paltry.”

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