What Do Each of the Presidential Candidates Plan to do for Small Business?

 by Guest Contributor
4 min read
Newsroom Running a Business
What Do Each of the Presidential Candidates Plan to do for Small Business?

What Do Each of the Presidential Candidates Plan to do for Small Business?

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by Guest Contributor
Newsroom Running a Business

Primary season is upon us. With one caucus down and many more primaries to come, it looks like an interesting road ahead for both the GOP and Democratic parties.

One important issue that touches many U.S. families and has a huge effect on the U.S. economy is small business. According to the Small Business Administration (SBA), small businesses account for 54% of all U.S. sales and have created 66% of the net new jobs since the 1970s. Despite this impact, the issues surrounding small business often don’t get the attention they deserve.

As a business owner, it’s important to know what each candidate is promising to small business. Here we’ll break that down.
candidates

Issue: Access to Capital for Small Business

Hillary Clinton Plans to ease burdens on community banks to provide credit to small business.
Ted Cruz N/A.
Marco Rubio Wants to replace the Dodd Frank Act to bring back 40% of the small and mid-sized community bank loans to small businesses that were wiped out because of it.
Bernie Sanders Advocates for laws to lower small business loan interest rates.
Donald Trump N/A.

Issue: Tax On Small Business

Hillary Clinton Plans to provide tax relief and simplified tax filings to small business.
Ted Cruz Plans to replace corporate income tax on small business with a flat 16% tax for businesses, abolish payroll tax, death tax and Obamacare taxes. Also to simplify tax code for small business.
Marco Rubio Wants to enact tax reform to cut taxes for small business to 25%, repeal the death tax and let businesses immediately expense new investments. Also fight carbon tax and new EPA regulations that act as a national energy tax.
Bernie Sanders Supported the Small Business Jobs Act, which provided $12B in small business tax relief after the financial crisis. Supports higher tax on largest corporations.
Donald Trump Supports lower small business tax (including eliminating payroll taxes for older workers) and simplified tax code. Proposed corporate tax rate is 15%.

Issue: Regulation/Red Tape

Hillary Clinton Plans to launch effort to cut red tape for small business at every government level.
Ted Cruz Believes excessive regulations need to be tackled. Would support act that would make Congress accountable to vote on any regulation that will increase costs.
Marco Rubio Plans to increase small business input in the regulatory process.
Bernie Sanders Focus is on reducing red tape for community banks to assist small business.
Donald Trump N/A.

Issue: Minimum Wage

Hillary Clinton Supports $12/hr federal minimum wage and stronger overtime rules.
Ted Cruz Does not support higher minimum wage.
Marco Rubio Does not support higher minimum wage.
Bernie Sanders Supports $15/hr federal minimum wage.
Donald Trump Does not support higher minimum wage.

Issue: Affordable Care Act (ACA)

Hillary Clinton Supports ACA. Plans to expand health care and slow the growth of associated costs.
Ted Cruz Plans to repeal Obamacare and replace with “commonsense health insurance [that is]… personal and portable and affordable.”
Marco Rubio Wants to repeal Obamacare and replace with a system that returns control of health care policy to individual states.
Bernie Sanders Was on the committee that wrote the ACA. Supports a “medicare-for-all” system.
Donald Trump Wants to repeal Obamacare and replace with a system that returns control of health care policy to individual states.

Issue: Entrepreneurship, etc.

Hillary Clinton Will encourage innovation by leveraging the best ideas of the private sector (eg: Etsy and eBay).
Ted Cruz Against net neutrality. Introduced American Energy Renaissance Act to repeal all federal climate change regulation.
Marco Rubio Wants to keep the “sharing economy” unregulated by the federal government. Plans to “modernize” our immigration laws.
Bernie Sanders Wants to reform current patent system to stop negatively impacting businesses, and supports net neutrality to keep associated costs low for small businesses.
Donald Trump Plans to re-negotiate trade deals and put a tighter hold on free trade to keep jobs in the U.S.

 

Sources:
https://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/small-business/
http://feelthebern.org/bernie-sanders-on-small-business-and-entrepreneurship/
http://www.inc.com/gene-marks/why-does-small-business-overwhelmingly-support-donald-trump.html
https://www.tedcruz.org/news/small-business-supports-cruz-simple-flat-tax-plan/
https://www.tedcruz.org/record/jobs-opportunity/
https://ballotpedia.org/2016_presidential_candidates_on_healthcare
https://ballotpedia.org/2016_presidential_candidates_on_taxes
https://ballotpedia.org/2016_presidential_candidates_on_government_regulations

This article was originally written on February 18, 2016 and updated on October 26, 2017.

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