by Raynard Jackson
Opinion
for Black Enterprise
The Obama administration has been a total failure when it
comes to small and minority business. How did I come to this conclusion?
There are two easy ways to determine what is important to a person or an
elected official: to listen to what they talk about the most and to open
their checkbooks to see who they write checks to.
Everyone knows that the small
business community is the economic engine of our country—we create over 70% of
all new jobs, not the
Fortune 500 companies. But yet, Obama rarely engages with the small
business community and has never met with a group of Black businessmen since he
has been in the White House.
You rarely hear the President
talking about the minority business community. Oops, I forgot, that would
entail talking about Black businesses also and this president will do nothing
to remotely make people think he is Black.
He will meet privately with
homosexual or Hispanic business owners before he meets with Black business
owners. Obama has no minority businessmen in his inner circle.
This is where Romney blew it
during his recent speech before the NAACP. Going to a Black group and not
mentioning Black entrepreneurs is like going to church and not mentioning
God! Business is supposed to be Romney’s strong suit, but Obama and the
Democrats are “swift boating” him when it comes to his business background.
How do you take someone’s
greatest accomplishment—being a very successful businessman in Romney’s
case—and turn it into a liability? This is the same thing Bush did to
John Kerry in the 2004 presidential election—turned Kerry’s military service
into a liability.
Minority business has always done
better during Republican presidencies than under Democratic ones. But
under this current administration, Black and Hispanic contracting with the
federal government have decreased 8 and 7%, respectively.
So, what should the Obama
administration do to address the issues affecting small and minority business?
They should do the same thing
they did with Hillary Clinton and homosexual rights. Clinton tied our
foreign aid policy, specifically in Africa, to the acceptance of homosexual rights.
Never in the history of our
country have we made such a demand on a sovereign state.
In foreign policy, we call this “conditionality.”
We will give assistance, but you will have to agree to all the conditions we
put on you. There is nothing unusual about this. In fact this can
be a very useful tool in foreign policy.
Yet this same administration puts
no conditions on the billions of dollars the big banks received from the U.S.
government. Banks took the money at almost zero % interest and then
refused to make loans to businesses—both large and small;
minority and non-minority.
Obviously, in this
administration’s view, it is more important to promote homosexuality in foreign
countries through conditionality; than to promote and force banks in the U.S.
to give access to capital to small and minority business owners.
How many jobs has the homosexual
agenda created? I can guarantee that if all small business owners were homosexual, this
administration would focus on them like a laser beam.
The economy by far is the most
important issue facing this country and yet the very group that can be the most
helpful—the small and minority business community—is the one community that
this president is ignoring the most.
If conditionality is a valid tool
in Obama’s foreign policy, should it not be a tool in his domestic
policy? The interesting thing is that there are laws already on the books
requiring defense contractors to partner with small and minority
businesses. None of the firms ever meet their numbers because they know
the government will not do anything about it; so small businesses continue to suffer.
So, the lack of talking and the
lack of action by this president on small business issues proves that the
economy is not paramount to this administration! When all is said and
done, there is more said than done.
Raynard Jackson is president
& CEO of Raynard Jackson & Associates, LLC., a D.C.-public
relations/government affairs firm. His website is: www.raynardjackson.com.
The views expressed in this article of those of Jackson, and do not necessarily
represent Black Enterprise.
