Dear President Obama

You're in the news a lot these days as you tour the country promoting your jobs bill. We've been hearing a lot about tax credits, infrastructure funding and other schemes to help jump the economy and get some people working.

The problem with all of this is that I don't think you're actually talking to small business.

Believe it or not, I am a small businessman. I have six employees. I'm no different than thousands of other small business across this state: florists, gas stations, restaurant owners et cetera. Tax credits won't be felt until next year. Infrastructure jobs won't directly help me grow my business. I don't want a business loan - I'm too afraid of default as it is. Decreasing my personal taxes will not convince me to hire. Increasing my personal taxes will definitely discourage me to hire. And, frankly, if I'm going to hire someone I'm going to hire the best person for the job and not base my decision on who's been unemployed the longest.

But you want me to hire. Fine. Pay attention and I will tell you exactly what it would take to get me to hire someone:

1. Increase my volume. It's pretty simple - if my business picks up then I'm going to need more help. You can't run my business but you can make sure my potential customers have money to spend. I know, this one is a complex issue but if folks have more cash then I should be able to get my share. If I can't then I'm a poor excuse for a businessman. This solution is a slow one though - we won't see an increase overnight.
   
2. Decrease, DIRECTLY, my business expenses. I'm not talking about partial credits I won't see until next year. Or deductions to be taken. I'm talking about doing something TODAY. If you give my payroll tax a holiday for a year then I will guarantee you I will hire someone tomorrow. Hopefully, that person will increase my business to the point that when the holiday expires I have the cash flow to keep them.
3. Pay for the employee. You heard me - pay their salary. What the heck, it's better than paying them unemployment, right? Set up a method whereby I can hire someone and put them on the Federal payroll for a year. My employee - your expense. At the end of that time we can convert that person over to my expense.

That's it. As I sit here, these are the only three things I can think of that would convince me to hire. Were you sitting across from me right now touting your current American Jobs Act I would tell you, quite sincerely, that for my small business and many, many others it will fail to move the needle even a little bit.