Small business owners frequently feature in Democratic speeches and messaging, and the Party has ample policy evidence to make its case clear both nationally and at a state level—yet it consistently fails to reach these voters. Rather than centering appeals to worn identity politics or voters’ fear of a continued Trump presidency, while effectively ignoring many business issues, a more cohesive messaging approach that explains these policies and trusts the public to understand them would better reach small business owners, a crucial voting population.
According to the 2016 National Small Business Association (NSBA) Politics of Small Business Survey, 70 million people in the United States run or work for a small business, 47 percent of which have five or fewer full-time employees. When asked which party best represents their business, 46 percent of the small business owners surveyed chose the Republican Party, and 14 percent chose the Democratic Party, while 40 percent selected “Neither.” In other words, there is a large block of currently disaffected potential supporters.
Moreover, small business owners are extremely engaged politically. Of those NSBA members and non-members surveyed, 97 percent said that they vote regularly in national contests, and 82 percent said that they vote regularly in local and city contests. In addition, 65 percent said that they had donated money to a candidate’s campaign, 42 percent to a political party, and 30 percent to an issue-specific campaign.
Democratic leaders should be shocked at the extremely low rate of small business owners who say that the Democratic Party best represents their business compared to the Republican Party, since the Democratic Party champions many of the policies that would help small businesses the most. In the NSBA’s survey of small business owners, “Controlling Costs of Health Care,” “Regulatory Reform,” and “Deficit Reduction and Entitlement Reform” were among the issues most frequently selected as reasons for which respondents have contacted their elected officials. All of these could be winning issues for Democrats among these voters, given more effective messaging.
While healthcare policy is currently being debated within the Democratic Party, a broad consensus exists that government should play a more active role in healthcare to keep costs down, similar to the governments of other developed countries. Right now, employer-sponsored health insurance imposes significant administrative costs on small businesses, which must compete both with companies in countries like Canada and Germany with public healthcare systems, as well as with larger corporations, which are able to administer more efficiently due to their greater scale. Adopting a healthcare system in line with other OECD countries—which all spend less than the United States on healthcare per capita—would free small businesses from this administrative disadvantage. In addition, the employer-sponsored health insurance system in the United States traps some workers in their current jobs, preventing them from leaving to work elsewhere or start their own businesses. This angle of attack on the issue is too rarely taken by Democrats.
The deregulation of the American financial sector since the late 20th century has been disastrous for small business. The 2008 financial crisis and subsequent Great Recession, facilitated by this deregulation, forced the closure of small businesses across industries and led to layoffs and a shortage of small business loans. While some Democrats in the decades leading up to the crash did contribute to the conditions that enabled it, the Republican Party has refused to address these institutional issues. The 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, proposed by President Barack Obama, was passed largely along party lines, and Republicans have tried repeatedly to weaken or repeal it. In industry, the Democratic Party should reaffirm the importance of antitrust regulations in combating monopolies in industries from beer to tech, where large companies like Anheuser-Busch and Microsoft are able to stifle competition. Democrats should stress that crucial regulations like these don’t restrain small businesses; rather, they protect small businesses from having to suffer from the risky behavior or anti-competitive practices of firms many times their size.
On deficit reduction, the Republican Party has been abysmal. The Trump administration’s 2017 tax cuts, rushed through a Republican Congress behind closed doors, expanded the deficit with little of the benefit going to small businesses or to low- and middle-income Americans, who would reintroduce it into the economy through spending. Passed during a period of already-high growth, the cuts largely funded stock buybacks by large corporations at the expense of young Americans, who will be servicing the national debt for years to come. While Democrats must deal with the deficit more seriously through policy, doing so also requires challenging Republican hypocrisy on this issue in front of the American public. GOP claims to fiscal responsibility are illegitimate and should be viewed as such.
By not framing several important policy issues, including healthcare and regulation, in ways that could better attract support from new bases, such as small business owners, Democrats undermine their ability to complete politically and, ultimately, to enact policies that would help their constituents.
Be First to Comment