Big on Small Business

Regarding the Feb. 15 story, “Caught in a Funding Squeeze: SBA Overwhelmed by Surge in Demand for Loan Guarantees”:

We all are aware (or should be) that the Fortune 500 is not the source of new jobs or new ideas for America. Small businesses are increasingly the source of both. These businesses will probably be America’s industrial salvation.

Meanwhile, on the front page we are regularly treated to stories about the crisis in the money-lending industry. It’s OK to finance leveraged buyouts. It’s OK to loan to unstable Latin American economies. It’s OK for taxpayers to bail out (or give money to) the super rich, even if it is the Bass brothers or Ford Motor taking over a “sick” financial institution.

Yet it is “too risky” to loan to small businesses. The Reagan Administration even tried to eliminate the Small Business Administration.

It is time to stop this stupidity of double standards for the already rich and those who want to help America prosper.

JOHN ROLKER

Carlsbad