


President Joe Biden is underscoring his small business credentials as he pitches his Bidenomics economic policies to skeptical voters.
Biden's message, disseminated from the White House, seeks to undermine a potent Republican criticism of the president before next year's election.
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Biden is poised to announce new competition policies during a competition council meeting Wednesday, which the White House says are aimed at helping entrepreneurs and small business owners. But Alfredo Ortiz, president and CEO of Job Creators Network, criticized the council for prioritizing "style over substance."
"Biden's council misunderstands economics by making political moves, such as trying to ban 'junk fees,' the costs of which simply get added to underlying prices," Ortiz told the Washington Examiner. "Governments can't create competition; they can only impede it."
"The government can only pick winners and losers," he said. "To truly create competition, the government should do less, not more. Biden and his bureaucrats should get out of the way to let small businesses compete, bringing down prices and improving quality for ordinary Americans."
Rachel Snyderman, the Bipartisan Policy Center's economic program director, repeated that "protecting America’s role as a global economic leader requires supporting our small business owners, innovators, and entrepreneurs."
"But small business owners are still struggling with longstanding issues, like access to credit, which predate the pandemic," she said. "Luckily, there’s a lot of interest from Congress and the administration in efforts like reauthorizing the Small Business Administration to modernize the agency."
When asked whether Biden would be monitoring Wednesday's House Oversight Committee hearing amplifying testimony from two former IRS investigators who claim there was political interference in his son Hunter's case, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre cited the competition council's fifth meeting as evidence of the president's "busy day."
"That's what the president's going to be focused," she said. "I'm just not going to speak to the hearing that's happening tomorrow. We won't comment from here."
The White House earlier described Wednesday's announcement as underpinning a Bidenomics "key pillar" as the president's average approval-disapproval rating is about 38%-58%, a net negative 20 percentage point difference, at least according to RealClearPolitics.
The CNBC and SurveyMonkey's Small Business Confidence Index increased last quarter for a score of 46 out of 100, with 40% of small business owners contending economic conditions are good for their business, an increase from 34% from the first quarter of 2023. Forty-six percent also expect their business's revenue to increase during the next year, up from 43% from the first quarter, and 28% anticipate their number of employees increasing during the next 12 months, up from 23% from the first quarter.
At the same time, 3% of small business owners consider broader economic conditions to be excellent. Eighteen percent perceive the economy to be good, 34% fair, and 44% poor. Ninety-one percent of small business owners remain concerned about inflation, and 31% are confident the Federal Reserve can decrease consumer prices.
Despite a background briefing, it is unclear how Biden's new competition policies will directly help entrepreneurs and small business owners. But information provided by the White House regarding Wednesday's announcement emphasized $450 billion-plus in pandemic-era small business funding, in addition to $8.3 billion made available through Treasury Department's emergency capital investment program and $100 million through the Commerce Department Minority Business Development Agency's capital readiness scheme. The Small Business Administration has published rules that will permit it to approve more 7(a) licenses to nonbank lenders and community development financial institutions as well.
Biden's announcement came after the president and the Small Business Administration promoted his "record" number of small business applications and federal government procurement spending.
"I came to office determined to build the economy from the middle out and bottom up, not the top down — that’s Bidenomics — and supporting small business has been central to the progress we’ve made," Biden said Tuesday. "My first two years saw the most Americans applying to start small businesses of any on record."
"[Tuesday's] report from the Small Business Administration shows that we’ve also made progress leveling the playing field in federal contracts, with a record $163 billion going to small businesses," he added. "Just in the last fiscal year, our policies have supported one million jobs in small businesses."
Simultaneously, Rep. Roger Williams (R-TX) announced his House Small Business Committee has marked up and passed eight bills out of the panel, from the POST IT Act to the Small Business Regulatory Reduction Act.
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"This bill will create a centralized location to find guidance documents and updated policy directives so businesses will know where to go to find all information on how to comply with a regulation," the committee said Tuesday of the first measure.
"This bill requires the Small Business Administration to ensure that for each fiscal year, the cost to small businesses of the administration’s rulemaking, including the modification or repeal of a rule, is not greater than zero," it continued of the second.