Government Waste

Veronique de Rugy | From the December 2024 issue

Everyone loves small businesses. But that's no reason to keep an agency dedicated to extending loans and other privileges to some of them at the expense of everyone else.

Contrary to common belief, it is not the role of government to subsidize private companies. This statement is true whether the company is green, minority-owned, small, or gargantuan. Besides, the fetish for small businesses is annoying. Small businesses employ 45.9 percent of American workers, according to the Small Business Administration (SBA). That sounds impressive until you realize that 99.9 percent of businesses in America are small. That means 0.1 percent of businesses in the country employ more than half of the work force.

The SBA is mostly useless. No doubt various businesses getting subsidized loans through the agency love it. If your enterprise can't get a loan because your business plan is........

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