Investing in entrepreneurship

[Stephen Baker]

The #1 priority of the Obama administration should be investment in entrepreneurship. We clearly need to re-tool our economy to better reflect the realities of the modern information-based economy.

Programs that provide better support for small business owners, (re)training for workers, and incentives for entrepreneurs and investors who can create new jobs are critical to reboot our economy.

Such investment capitalizes on the natural American advantage in market-based innovation and can pay dividends for decades by encouraging growth and the redistribution of the labor force.

Scott Fox
Author, Internet Riches
http://www.ScottFoxBlog.com

[Susan Kuhn Frost]

An education tax credit could be an interesting idea. People should be free to choose the training that they see has the best chance of improving their employability. Small business owners can be best helped through tax credits and perhaps modest increases in the Small Business Development Center program.

But such policies are unlikely to find support. I am very concerned about the lack of entrepreneurial representation on Obama's economic team. To a person, these are advisors whose focus will be govenrment spending and central planning. Tax cuts to encourage new business starts (eg exempting the first 50K in revenue from income tax) would go a long way to encourage local folks to get out there and make something happen. No matter how wisely executed, a centrally planned stimulus package can't replicate the stimulus that would come from thousands or even millions starting their own businesses, using their local knowledge to see where opportunitites are. See also my discussion thread on whether the end game of the Obama team is to defang capitalism, rather than to fix problems that in my view stem primarily from federal monetary policy and regulatory laxness and not from any incurable defects in our economic system.