Ryan Streeter
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In this week’s Weekly Standard, Matthew Continetti’s has a very good piece in which he writes:
The worst thing Republican presidential candidates could do is be timid and uninspired in their proposals for American renewal. Rather than pledge to lower the corporate tax, for example—big corporations actually seem to be doing pretty well—they’d be better off aligning themselves with small businessmen, many of whom file as individuals, and other entrepreneurs and venture capitalists. Researchers at the Kauffman Foundation have long pointed out that most net job creation in the United States comes from firms less than five years old. Why not embrace policies such as reform of the individual tax code, permanent cuts in payroll taxes paid by employers, and reductions in bureaucratic red tape that make it easier to start a company? Reducing inefficient tax breaks could be the trade-off for substantial increases in the child tax credit. The GOP would be on the side of startups and young families. Obama would be left in the cold.
Back on June 1, we made the case here that policymakers are overlooking the central importance of new businesses (not just small businesses) to a growth agenda, and cited Kauffman data and recommendations.
And several days later we rehashed the Kauffman findings as additional support to a fine post by Walter Russell Mead, who argued that new enterprises are becoming the third phase of the American Dream – and something policymakers desperately need to understand.
We've visited this issue on several occasions because it's getting short shrift from political leaders, which may simply be a function of people not knowing that much about it. As a result, it is an issue waiting for an advocate.
Who will be the first 2012 candidate to take up this cause in a serious way?
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