Small business owners – and I am one – face unique challenges. America’s 36.2 million small businesses account for 9 out of 10 new jobs, 62.4 million overall. They represent 99.9 percent of all businesses, a fact easily forgotten in our Walmart-Amazon-Apple world. Entrepreneurs power America – at high risk.
Nationally, a snapshot of our economy shows good news, but we carry more debt than ever. Federal debt is a staggering $38.77 trillion, and corporate debt is $21.55 trillion.
Most business debt is held by big companies, not small ones. Small companies do not get as much credit. Why? Bigs have more assets – more layers of legal protection. It is far harder to pierce the “corporate veil,” recover from owners and officers.
Why does it matter? Because in tough times – when uncertainty, inflation, interest, and shocks hit – like in 2008 and COVID – Bigs weather the storm, Smalls fail.
In short, small companies – half the economy – take more personal risk to start up and capture the market, rather than just surviving. Small business owners know what big company managers never will: It is all on them, sink or swim, survive or perish.
So, how can challenges for small business owners be reduced, chances of growth and survival increased – on a personal level, anxiety reduced, and survival improved?
The answer nationally – which President Trump is doing, like Reagan before him – is to roll back needless taxes and regulations, improving life for small businesses.
Already, President Trump has delivered $907 billion in regulatory relief to small business owners. Missed by headlines, found in SBA testimony, Trump is reversing the 12,000 “Biden rules” that added $6 trillion in costs to small business owners.
This is huge. Trump is systematically rolling back – directing federal agencies to push regulatory elimination, for wasteful, unnecessary, and illogical environmental, workplace, fishing, and countless other rules, from over-certification to over-regulation.
While everyone wants clean air and water, safe workplaces, and accountability for crimes, there are thousands of senseless examples of overreach. They are ending.
The impact is real. Small businesses, in states following Trump, are feeling relief; entrepreneurial activity is rising, along with employment, wages, and security.
That said, some states – like Maine – still resist common sense, overtax and overregulate, refusing to cut senseless taxes, subsidies, regulations, and certifications.
At every turn, Maine, Minnesota, Maryland, Illinois, Delaware, Oregon, and other left-leaning states continue to make life harder and harder for small businesses.
Using Maine as an example, over-taxation (fourth-highest burden), over-regulation, over-certification, and government intrusion cause roughly 300 businesses a year to leave or fold, with the top ten in property and corporate taxes before regulatory burdens.
Today, Maine has 153,000 small businesses, 99.2 percent of all businesses. They employ 290,000 workers, themselves facing inordinately high tax rates. Worse, these Maine Democrats push conflicts with President Trump, impairing citizens.
As a 25-year small businessman myself – who weathered the 2008 and COVID downturns – I can attest that small business owners face unique challenges, need nimble management skills, constant preparedness for revised planning, customer, legal, health care, and labor productivity analysis – not faced by big companies.
In the end, small business owners – not big ones – are America’s real risk takers – and they need lower taxes, less government, more understanding. They are the engine under America’s hood.
Big business is good, but small businesses take the risks that are personal. That is a huge difference – only understood by small business owners. And after all, if America also runs on big business, all big businesses begin small.
Robert Charles is a former Assistant Secretary of State under Colin Powell, former Reagan and Bush 41 White House staffer, Maine attorney, ten-year naval intelligence officer (USNR), and 25-year businessman. He wrote “Narcotics and Terrorism” (2003), “Eagles and Evergreens” (North Country Press, 2018), and “Cherish America: Stories of Courage, Character, and Kindness” (Tower Publishing, 2024). He is the National Spokesman for AMAC. Today, he is running to be Maine’s next Governor (please visit BobbyforMaine.com to learn more)!
