Small Biz Taking the Brunt of the Debt Crisis - FOX Nightly Scoreboard
Monday, August 1, 2011
Drew Greenblatt, President of Marlin Steel Wire, Brett McMahon of Miller and Long Concrete Construction and
Toby Smith, discuss the debt ceiling crisis and effects on small businesses.
America's Nightly Scoreboard
FOX Business News: >> All the back and forth on the debt ceiling crisis has been
yet another thorn in the side of small businesses. On top of
the higher taxes or at least threat of higher taxes, more
regulations, all the uncertainty with health care costs and
the rising health care cost, we are not getting solid evidence
that the Bush/Obama bailouts and the Obama industrial policies
have empowered the corporation at the expense of the small
business and that is killing our economy.
For a view from the firing line, we Brett McMahon of
Miller and Long Concrete Construction, Drew Greenblatt
is president of Marlin Steel Wire and Toby Smith is
back from NBT Equity Research.
FOX Business News: >> Drew, of course the people who get all the breaks,
the people who get all the cut-outs when regulations are formed,
the big guys; the billionaires and millionaires. If you want to
talk millionaires and billionaires, they're the ones who have been
getting the special breaks over the past three years.
DREW GREENBLATT >> It's a challenge because small businesses don't have lobbyists
prowling the halls of Capital Hill. All the big companies and
the unions, etc. have lots of lobbyists that are advocating their
cause, day-in and day-out, meeting with all these congress people.
Except for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National
Association of Manufacturers, there's not a lot of people out there
protecting our interests.
FOX Business News: >> Drew, the fact is that we have a problem creating jobs in this
country because a lot of the businesses are scared.
They're scared of the over-reach of government.
DREW GREENBLATT >> I think you nailed it. You know, there's a lot of confusion
going on out there. Every single day, Washington is the
front-page of all of our newspapers and there's too much anxiety
amongst business leaders. If we don't get this thing worked out
in the next couple of days, every single CEO in America is going
to march down to his payroll office and say don't hire any more
people and he's going to go to the people in the accounting office
and say: You know what? Don't mail any checks. I don't know
what's going to happen, so I've got to hoard our cash. Everybody
is going to pull back. We need the politicians to stop playing
with fire.
FOX Business News: >> It's the uncertanity more than anything else, that is killing
small business.
DREW GREENBLATT >> They're playing with fire right now.
