Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

EDITORIAL:

Trump kneecaps small businesses in vindictive move to sabotage Biden

Trump

Patrick Semansky / AP

President Donald Trump speaks with reporters after participating in a video teleconference call with members of the military on Thanksgiving, Thursday, Nov. 26, 2020, at the White House in Washington.

President Donald Trump recently showed precisely how much he regards the well-being of America’s small businesses and their millions of employees: Not one lousy bit. In fact, he’s willing to let them drown in order to undercut President-elect Joe Biden.

Trump proved it when his Treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, announced the administration wouldn’t extend several critically needed lending programs to small businesses beyond the end of the year.

This screamed of being a purely political move. Mnuchin claimed otherwise — saying his purpose was to return unspent funding to the Treasury in accordance with the intent of Congress — but that explanation didn’t come close to passing the smell test. There’s ample support in Congress to extend the lending programs.

And why wouldn’t there be? Small businesses have already been devastated by the pandemic, and now head into the holiday season and new year even more at risk as a nationwide surge in coronavirus cases prompts a growing number of business closures and restrictions.

One report last month, from the International Franchise Association, estimated that as many as 1 in 20 U.S. small businesses faced imminent closure without additional assistance. That ratio translates to some 36,000 businesses, which comes on top of tens of thousands that have already shut down.

For those businesses, the emergency loans offered a longer runway to get through the economic crisis. Any remotely responsible and empathetic leader would have extended the loans without giving it a second thought.

But not Trump. In his vengefulness and toddler-like rage over losing the election, he’s willing to toy with the lives of untold numbers of American workers to sabotage the economy that Biden will inherit in January.

“The Treasury Department’s attempt to prematurely end support that could be used for small businesses across the country when they are facing the prospect of new shutdowns is deeply irresponsible,” Kate Bedingfield, a spokeswoman for the Biden transition, said in a statement last week. “At this fragile moment, as the COVID and economic crises are reaccelerating, we should be reinforcing the government’s ability to respond and support the economy — not undermining it.”

True, but “deeply irresponsible” is actually putting it far too mildly. This is an act of malevolence: It’s Trump and the creeps around him salting the earth as they leave the White House, and in the process putting completely innocent people in harm’s way.

Who knows how many businesses might close without these loans? How many workers will lose their jobs? How many families will go from planning a happy holiday celebration to figuring out where to get free meals or find a cheaper place to live?

Keep in mind too that when small businesses are hurting, we all feel the pain. The federal government reports that small businesses account for 44% of U.S. economic activity and are responsible for two-thirds of net new job creation. Losing those businesses takes wages out of the economy, inhibiting the consumer spending that largely drives the economy and reducing tax revenue that funds all manner of services and infrastructure.

And that’s not to mention the amount of innovation that small businesses bring to the table, which is considerable.

Not surprisingly, financial markets reacted badly when the news was announced, as the emergency loan programs have provided a stabilizing influence on the economy. The Fed also criticized Trump and Mnuchin, saying it “would prefer that the full suite of emergency facilities established during the coronavirus pandemic continue to serve their important role as a backstop for our still-strained and vulnerable economy.”

It’s alarming and appalling that the Trump administration has put small businesses at greater risk.

Let’s not forget that many of these business operators and employees voted for Trump, believing he had their best interests at heart.

Sadly, that’s obviously not the case. Instead, Trump showed that he would rather see them suffer than for Biden to succeed and for the American economy to recover quickly.