Business owners want specifics on policies

Associated Press

NEW YORK

Small-business owners say it’s time the presidential candidates provide concrete details on how they’ll tackle key issues including taxes, health care costs and government regulations.

“They haven’t been getting to the meat of issues about how they’re going to help small businesses and entrepreneurs in America,” says Craig Bloem, owner of FreeLogoServices.com, a website based in Boston that lets companies design advertising logos.

In a recent Wells Fargo survey of 600 business owners, about three-quarters of the respondents echoed Bloem’s sentiments. Most said they planned to vote in November, and that taxes and the economy topped their list of concerns.

Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have talked about cutting taxes, including the personal rates that sole proprietors and members of a partnership pay.

On his campaign website, Trump promises to cut the tax rate for companies big and small to 15 percent. Clinton vows to provide “targeted tax relief “ to small businesses, and make it easier to start and grow a business. Bernie Sanders’ proposals are aimed at raising taxes on wealthier people; those with income of $250,000 would see their tax rates rise. He also wants to raise taxes on large corporations.

The candidates also have made general promises on other issues that affect small businesses. Trump, for example, says he’d ask Congress to immediately repeal the health care law that requires companies with at least 50 workers to offer them health insurance. He says he’d ask Congress to consider reforms to replace the law. Clinton says she’d build on the law to slow health care costs. Sanders wants to see Medicare expanded to cover all people and free employers of responsibility for providing health insurance.

When asked for more specifics about how he’d help small businesses, Trump’s campaign issued a general statement and referred a reporter to the candidate’s website. The Clinton and Sanders campaigns did not respond to repeated emails seeking comment.

But the candidates will have to start talking in details to win the support of owners.

“They love being able to say that they’re for the small-business owner, or at least they pretend to,” says Ernesto Miranda, co-owner of Walker-Miranda, an architectural design based firm in Dallas. “A lot of things that I see are a little bit more lip service. I would like to see more concrete plans.”

Miranda wants to hear whether candidates are willing to give small businesses the kind of subsidies and tax breaks large corporations can get for job creation.

Bloem, the FreeLogoServices.com owner, hopes to learn candidates’ proposals for reducing taxes on the sale of a company, and their plans to encourage small-business innovation through more government contracts.

Brett Randle, CEO of Soulman’s Bar-B-Que, a chain of 14 restaurants in the Dallas area, is interested in how the candidates would ease the burden of government regulations, including health care. He has 225 employees, and under the health care law is required to offer them health insurance.

“There’s been some talk of advocating for the small-business owner,” Randle says. “At this point, it seems more hyperbole than anything.”