Small Businesses Get the Spotlight in Presidential Debate

The conventional wisdom is that Mitt Romney beat Barack Obama in the first     presidential debate, but there was another winner in terms of attention Wednesday night: America's small businesses. "Small business,"  appeared 27 times in this transcript of the debate and featured prominently in both candidates' opening statements. Obama, who went first, said, "I think it's important...that we change our tax code to make sure that we're helping small businesses."  In his turn, Romney named "champion small business" as the fifth element of a five-part economic plan. The Republican nominee elaborated, "It's small business that creates the jobs in America. And over the last four years small-business people have decided that America may not be the place to open a new business, because new business startups are down to a 30-year low. I know what it takes to get small business growing again, to hire people." Amid their general agreement that small businesses are an important engine of economic growth, the candidates drew clear distinctions between themselves... Continue reading.