The first of four presidential debates took place on Sept. 26, and both candidates expressed that this election is about getting the economy working for average Americans again – and that means small business owners. According to the Small Business Administration (SBA), small businesses provide 55 percent of all jobs and 66 percent of all net jobs since the 1970s. The problem is that recent data from the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) found that political uncertainty is at an all-time high because neither candidate is speaking in detail to issues that small business owners care about.
This post will take a look at what Clinton and Trump have said about small businesses, whether their proposed plans help or hurt and what they could do differently. The best way to remedy political uncertainty is to know what the candidates stand for and what proposed policies and beliefs mean in the long run.

Hillary Clinton Wants to Be the Small Business President
Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton’s father ran a printing fabric and draperies shop, so she grew up in a small business family. In this election, she wants to level the playing field for America’s small businesses and be the “Small Business President” by making it easier to start and grow a small business through a number of initiatives and programs.
Clinton has a detailed plan for small businesses, but I’m going to concentrate on a few key points. One of her main running points for small businesses is to unlock access to capital to ease the burden for community banks and credit unions – giving them the finances they need to build, grow and hire. On top of unlocking access to capital, she plans to protect small businesses from large companies using litigation hurdles to deny payment for services, offering recourse to take on predatory behavior.

When it comes to starting businesses, Clinton would allow entrepreneurs to defer student-loan payments, with no interest, while they get their ventures off the ground. She also plans to improve the process to start a small business by offering state and local governments new federal incentives to cut the red tape and streamline unnecessary licensing to make it less costly to start a small business.

Sounds Great, But is it Too Good to be True?
Clinton’s attention to small businesses is admirable, which she detailed in a LinkedIn post with the idea of expanding access to capital and the authority of the SBA. However, there are policies she could do differently.

If she wants to be a presidential candidate who concentrates on small businesses, I’d encourage her to allow the SBA to work with non-bank lenders. This would allow lenders to gain access to government guarantees, accelerate innovation, provide much-needed capital to small businesses and give the SBA (and other governmental agencies) access to data that they’ve never had access to before.  
Protecting small businesses against larger firms who try to stiff them is noble, but it could create more red tape and barriers for small businesses. For tax relief and simplification for small businesses, she doesn’t say how much this will be or how she will stop wealthy individuals or large companies from also benefiting from this standard deduction. It’s unclear how she would propose paying for all of these programs, because as everyone knows, nothing is truly free. She continues to defer by saying she would tax affluent households.

Where Does Trump Stand With Small Businesses?
Republican candidate Donald Trump does a good job of being critical of what currently exists, but he has yet to offer any suggestions for real solutions or thoughts on how to help small businesses. His stance on business in general has been vague besides his proposed tax reform, which is more focused on individuals than small businesses outside of lowering the business tax rate from 35 percent to 15 percent.
During the first debate, Trump started to make his stance known. First, he criticized the current interest rate and what would happen if it were raised. Trump believes we’re in a bubble right now and the only thing that looks good is the stock market, but increasing interest rates even a little would likely cause it to come crashing down.
Similar to Clinton, Trump thinks that overregulation is limiting economic growth. Citing the worst revival of an economy since the Great Depression, Trump states that regulations on top of regulations are stopping new companies from forming, and causing old companies to go out of business.

His Real Stance Is Still Up For Debate
From what Trump’s proposed with his tax reform in his official campaign vision, most of these measures would benefit large corporations and not small businesses, where income is taxed as individual income and not corporate income. Only big corporations and fewer than 8 percent of small companies would save on taxes.

According to another Forbes contributor, most businesses that pay taxes on their individual tax report already pay a tax rate at or below 15 percent. So the flat tax actually wouldn’t benefit them. Similar to the hurdles Clinton’s proposals face, Trump hasn’t given a detailed plan to how the tax reforms and changes will be paid for.
When it comes to over regulation limiting economic growth, Trump continues to be vague. Besides his proposed tax reform, unfortunately there hasn’t been any specific plans or initiatives to help small businesses across the U.S. This is a missed opportunity for Trump. He keeps claiming that he is a successful businessman that cares about Main Street America, but his actions haven’t backed up his claims, nor has he laid out how he plans to follow through.

Have a Voice and Vote
In the end, one of the main underlying issues for setting small businesses up for success is through access to capital, whether that’s loans, equity, investing, bonds or other forms of financing. There are always going to be pros and cons to each side of the political argument. As with every election, ultimately the choice is yours.

The best you can do is present yourself with all the facts and arguments to formulate your own opinions on what you think is best for America. In this instance, we’re trying to decide what’s best for small businesses. After all, the embodiment of the American Dream is small businesses.
Brock Blake: Founder / CEO of Lendio, the nation's #1 marketplace for small business loans. You can reach Brock on Twitter at @brockblake or at www.lendio.com.

source:  http://www.forbes.com/sites/brockblake/2016/10/10/clinton-vs-trump-whos-better-for-your-small-business/2/#4595ef4e1e1f