Photos: YouTube Screenshots|Wikimedia Commons
I’ve got to hand it to Washington’s Republican policy makers. They’ve come up with a truly remarkable way that, they promise, will vastly expand the number of small businesses in America. Great!
This is personal for me, for I grew up in a family that had a Main Street business in small-town Texas, so I know how hard it is for little guys to battle the raw monopoly power of corporate chains. Thus, I cheered the GOP… until I learned that their small business proposal is just another big business scam.
Far from actually increasing the number of small enterprises, Trump bureaucrats are merely redefining “small” to include BIG. For example, the Small Business Administration has long categorized a business small if it had less than $25 million in yearly sales. But they’ve now jacked that definition up by 1,000 percent! Indeed, even some billion-dollar giants can now – HOCUS POCUS – qualify as small.
This is much worse than a statistical ruse, for it means that very large outfits with Wall Street backing, Washington lobbyists, and slick corporate lawyers will suddenly take the grants, contracts, and other government benefits intended to advance genuine Main Street innovators and competitors. In short, the GOP’s cynical scheme is using the small business label to overpower those very enterprises. It’s a deliberate rigging of the rules by today’s right-wing government officials to help big business grab public money – increasing the power of corporate elites to eliminate competitors… and further monopolize our economy.
Remember this deceit when Republican congress critters run corporate-financed election ads this fall claiming to “looove” small business. Yeah… love it to death.
Do something!
The SBA has extended the deadline for public comment on the proposed rule changes to November 20, 2026. You can read the proposed rules and then submit a comment here. The SBA has a guide for comment letter writing here.
Congresswoman Nydia Velázquez, ranking member on the House Small Business committee, is circulating a letter to other congress critters to sign on to, opposing the rules change. Ask your reps to sign on, too!
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