StimPack - Here's how to Really Rev the Engine

StimPack. Sounds like something you'd get at the physical therapist's office or pick up at the pharmacy to get off some addiction. It's actually the short-hand name inside the beltway types are giving the new Stimulus Package that the President and Congress are preparing for the struggling (drowning?) economy.

Sounds like the basic outlines of the bill are already in place. There is a lot of good measures to promote renewable energy and energy efficiency. I applaud that whole-heartedly. Where I get the heartburn is knowing that the massive Federal financial injection is going to end up in the hands probably exclusively of large, Fortune 500 type businesses. There will be no crumbs for the little guys.

The thing that really irks me is that leaders of both parties are constantly talking about "small businesses" in America. How we are the engines of growth and innovation, the doers, the risk takers. You'd think all this lip service to small businesses would translate to real dollars when StimPack comes around. You'd be wrong.

Let's take one example. There is an excellant provision to provide loan guarentees for renewable energy projects. Sounds great. Problem is that a small business will have extreme difficulty accesing that, or any other loan guarentee. See, we don't have the paid lawyers, lobbyists, or government procurement staff that the big companies do. We don't have the ability to devote countless hours to navigating the Federal waters like the big guys do. We don't have the ready access to large capital that the Fortune 500 companies do.

Yet, I believe that money given to small businesses has a direct impact on the local economies where those businesses are located. Instead of giving billions to large companies, how about giving billions to small businesses? I know what the impact of a loan guarentee or even a direct financial infusion would have on Clean Currents. We'd immediately hire people, spend money right here in the DC area, and invest in renewable energy projects. Money wouldn't sit on our balance sheets as it would with large companies. It would be directly injected into the local economy.

So, here comes StimPack. Hopefully it will work. And if it's not too late, maybe there can be a carve out for small businesses. After all, we are the engine that drives the economy.