Petaluma, Calif.- This week in Manchester, New Hampshire ten Republican Presidential candidates and eight Democratic Presidential candidates debated a variety of issues including the war in Iraq, healthcare, immigration and gays in the military. One subject that was conspicuously absent from the debates were any issues facing America’s 25 million small businesses.

 

With the exception of a brief comment from Governor Mitt Romney about the cost of health care for small businesses, the two words “small business” were absent from the debates.

 

President Bush and members of Congress routinely refer to small businesses as the backbone of our nation’s economy. They’re right: nationwide, small business accounts for 50.1 percent of the private sector workforce with 98 percent of all U.S. firms having less than 100 employees.

 

An analysis by My Success Gateway (http://www.mysuccessgateway.com/candidate.php), of the websites of major Presidential candidates such as Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Mitt Romney, John Edwards and Rudy Giuliani, found no mention of key issues facing America’s 25 million small businesses. Jim Peake, Founder and CEO of My Success Gateway LLC said, “It’s surprising that the websites of major Presidential candidates lack a concentration on solutions for small businesses, seniors and veterans.” Peak points out that 25 million small businesses, 38 million AARP members and 25 million veterans possibly represent 88 million potential votes, which is 72 percent of the 122 million popular votes collectively received by all candidates during the 2004 election (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._presidential_election,_2004).

 

Since both political parties have repeatedly promised to clean up fraud in government; small business advocates watched the debates hoping to see some mention of the twelve federal investigations that found the Small Business Administration had included billions in federal contracts to Fortune 1000 corporation such as Boeing, Lockheed, L3 Communications, Raytheon and Rolls Royce towards the federal governments 23 percent small business goal. Two separate investigations found that fraud was responsible for the diversion of federal small business contracts to big businesses.

 

“The fact that there were no questions or comments relating to America’s 25 million small businesses is a prime example that small businesses do not have the voice in Washington they deserve,” American Small Business League President Lloyd Chapman said. “We are going to change that before the next debates.” 

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