Small business owners have a lot to be angry about these days.
Aside from a tough economy making their lives harder, small business owners are facing higher taxes as they watch larger businesses being bailed out.
Many fear the federal government? economic stimulus package?hich does include help for small businesses?ay be a wash with proposed tax hikes in California to fix the state budget crisis.
All of this has small business owners fuming. For some, their frustration and anger borders on rage.
?ow is it that the government can? cut one job,?said Tracy Price, chief executive of Linc Group LLC, which provides services to building owners. ?ost people in the Legislature have never run a company.?
Many business owners already have cut 10% to 20% of their costs to adjust to the economy, according to Price. For them, it? hard to understand why the government can? cut more, he said.
Much of the anger of small business owners centers on Sacramento, where the governor and Legislature earlier this year enacted tax hikes along with other measures to close a $42 billion deficit.
On Tuesday, voters go to the polls to weigh in on extending those taxes for another two years, in exchange for a cap on spending and a more solid rainy day reserve.
The budget deal struck earlier this year is a step in the wrong direction, according to Barry Goldstein, founder of Orange-based American Correctional Solutions, which provides healthcare services to prisons.
The state has become bloated with a budget that has nearly doubled to $145 billion in the past 10 years, he said. Yet the most recent budget deal forces him to work harder to survive, Goldstein said.
?e?e done everything we can to prevent layoffs,?he said. ??l trim as much as I can to keep them employed.?
Goldstein said his 25-year-old business still is growing and expects to do about $18 million in sales this year. But he said he worries he may reach a point where he?l have to leave the state to survive.
?he entrepreneur is under great pressure,?Goldstein said.
Goldstein oversees about 150 workers. But the number of people he? responsible for is more like 500 when you include families of workers, he said.
Larger business owners have been more supportive of the budget measures on Tuesday? ballot because they see them bringing some stability to Sacramento, according to Michael Capaldi, a lawyer with Newport Beach law firm Spach, Capaldi & Waggaman LLP.
But the impact on smaller businesses is disproportionally bigger, Capaldi said.
?maller businesses would be harder hit,?he said. ?hey?e been looking at increasing tax burdens.?
Capaldi calls the measures a ?it stop on the way to financial disaster?for the state.
He said he fears the propositions down the road will have the opposite effect?y bringing higher taxes and expanding the size of the government.
Some small business owners, many of them Republicans, also grumble about
the Obama administration and its big spending.
But the administration has offered up something for small businesses in the stimulus legislation known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
In February, Obama signed the act, which includes help for small businesses by making $730 million available for loans.
The government also is spending $15 billion to jumpstart the secondary market for small business loans and is giving various tax incentives for small businesses, according to J. Adalberto Quijada, director of the government? Santa Ana office of the Small Business Administration.
Lower loan fees, higher guarantees, new SBA programs, secondary market incentives and enhancements to current SBA programs are all designed for the benefit of small businesses, he said.
But the SBA? success rests largely on the ability of banks to get the loans done.
Three banks turned down Brad Bogart, owner of Bogart Construction Inc. in Ir-vine, before he could get a loan.
He eventually secured one to buy a 10,000-square-foot building for his business, which builds stores for Philadelphia? Urban Outfitters Inc., among others.
?e even had approval from the SBA beforehand,?Bogart said. ?etting that done was a lot easier than working with the banks.?
The first-time property owner eventually secured a loan with Seacoast Commerce Bank in San Diego.
The SBA also has been counseling businesses.
?hen small businesses are in distress, the first reaction often is that they need money, but it? not always the answer,?Quijada said.
The SBA, along with other groups such as Service Corps of Retired Executives, known as Score, help local businesses educate themselves on things such as loan modifications, marketing and technology.
Many of them do so through online counseling.
?hey?e coming in record numbers to training and seminars,?Quijada said.
Another program to help small businesses is the SBA? 8(a), which gets companies certified to compete for government contracts for defense and construction projects.
?e?e had a lot of interest for the 8(a) program,?he said.
An effort also is under way to bring micro lending back, which involves loans less than $35,000, according to Quijada.
