Beware of Corporate Interests in Small Business Clothing

by: Kelly C.

Wed Jun 01, 2011 at 04:50:24 PM EDT

We wonder if the bankers and insurers who drove the global economy off a cliff really believe they can steal our identities without anyone so much as commenting. We wonder whether due diligence exists in any large-scale institution, as our representatives at every level of government, in the mainstream media, and even in academia allow yet another corporate fraud to go unchallenged.

Well, this small business owner, with 9 employees and a 33 year old woodworking company, isn't about to let them get off scot free this time.

Make no mistake, the U.S. Chamber's "America's Small Business Summit" is a carnival of big business spin bought and paid for with millions of dollars corporations have taken from average Americans. Those usurious credit card interest rates, debit fees and penalties average Americans fork over every day, those outrageous health insurance premiums, or for that matter the tax breaks, abatements and subsidies big companies wring out of state and local governments - these all pay for the distortion and misrepresentation that was on full display down in our nation's capital. And all in the name of "small business."

The companies who underwrote this snake oil show are big corporate brands. Just take a look at the lists of sponsors. Some names that will jump out at you are Sam's Club (a subsidiary of Walmart), Travelers, FedEx, AFLAC, VISA, AT&T, Raytheon, Google, Microsoft... if it sounds more like "Multi-National Corporations Week," that's probably because it is.

But wait, there's more! Thanks to the Citizens United decision, corporations that once had to figure out clever ways to evade election laws and flood the halls of Congress and state legislatures with wheelbarrows of cash can now do so with impunity. This week in Washington, DC is no exception. It's all about rolling back new banking regulations, like swipe fee reforms. And by all means let's do away with the first health care law actually designed to help small businesses (instead of insurance companies). Corporate cash in politics, who's afraid of that big bad wolf?

Why, you might ask, are the traditional business lobbies more interested in fronting for big banks and big insurance than in supporting policies that will actually help small businesses? Well, you could start with the fact that the insurance industry secretly gave the U.S. Chamber $86 million in 2009 to fight against health care reform. Indeed, the bulk of the Chamber's budget that year came from a very short list of anonymous big money donors.

So where are the real small business owners? We're holding the fort at our businesses, hanging on, struggling to weather the storm of the economic devastation wrought by Wall Street and the other sponsors of the sideshow in DC. On Main Street, the "let Wall Street run free" rhetoric now spewing forth in the name of small business is an insult. Tight credit, laid off customers, shuttered local plants, nonexistent local banks (replaced by Citi, Wells Fargo and B of A) are the real threats to Main Street, not swipe fee regulation.

On Main Street, we have each other's backs, we care about the condition of the roads, our schools, and our health care system... because they are ours. If corporate America has its way, our kids will go to corporate schools, our roads will be leased to corporate operators and our health care system, well, that's already been bought and sold and bought and sold again in corporate deals that leave critical community institutions, from the family practitioner to the community hospital, in critical condition.

It is time we take our country back for sure, take it back from Walmart and Raytheon, Halliburton and Citibank. Let's tell the big corporate players we see through their con. You can't invoke small business if you're a giant corporation, you can't call yourselves American if you evade your tax obligations with offshore corporate headquarters, and you can't fool us any more. Main Street is onto you.