Democratic presidential nominee Joe “You Ain’t Black” Biden seems to be trying to brand himself as a champion for small business. He recently released a social media ad featuring a small employer who claims that the Trump administration has left behind small businesses and that Biden would be a “partner in the White House.”
One glaring problem: As the Free Beacon reports, the firm featured in the ad wasn’t left behind but received funds from the Paycheck Protection Program devised and championed by the Trump administration. Oops!
The Philadelphia eyewear business was just one of five million small companies saved by the PPP, which issues forgivable loans to employers that maintain their payroll. The PPP, which saved over 50 million jobs, is a major reason for today’s record jobs report and the swift, “V”-shaped recovery over which Trump is presiding.
The fact that the Biden campaign couldn’t even find a small business owner who hadn’t received PPP funds demonstrates the incompetence of the Biden brand and just how expansive Team Trump’s relief efforts have been. Any media outlet featuring this ad must include this disclaimer. In fact, the Biden campaign should pull the ad for false advertising.
More broadly, Biden has an uphill battle trying to claim that he backs small business. He served eight years as vice president in one of the most anti-business administrations in U.S. history. He watched as his boss spun a spider-web of labor, environmental, and financial regulations that ensnared small businesses. As a result, Biden and Obama presided over the slowest economic recovery in U.S. history, characterized by tortoise-like wage and economic growth.
Before the pandemic hit, President Trump’s policies had created the best small business economy in recent history. Unemployment was at historic lows and wages — especially for ordinary Americans — were surging. Biden would return the country to the bad old days under President Obama. In fact, to the extent that he’s captured by the extreme leftists in his party, he would make the small business environment even worse.
Biden has promised to repeal President Trump’s tax cuts, which kept more money in the pockets of workers, small businesses, and communities. He would raise taxes on small firms structured as corporations by 33 percent. And he plans to hike payroll taxes, which would hurt employers and the middle class while reducing hiring and wage growth.
According to the Tax Foundation’s analysis, Biden’s tax plan would reduce GDP by 1.5 percent, shrink capital stock by 3.2 percent, and cost 585,000 jobs. It would also lower wages. In other words, Biden would make the pandemic economy the permanent one. Some partner.
Biden has also seemingly never met a business regulation he doesn’t like. He supports a $15 per hour national minimum wage, mandated paid leave, and California-style bans on independent contractors. Such workplace regulations are always detrimental to small businesses and their employees, but they are especially challenging in an economic recovery.
Biden also opposes traditional energy, which will raise costs for small businesses when margins are already under immense pressure. And he supports community banking regulations that destroy employers’ access to credit.
Biden would be a disaster for small businesses, their employees, and their communities. His claims to the contrary — like his latest social media ad — are laughable. The spot concludes with the assertion that Biden will “help small businesses like mine get back on our feet.” Hardly. Biden’s record and platform demonstrate that, if elected, he will kick them when they’re down.