Small Business Resource

With lending from banks getting tougher for many small businesses, some entrepreneurs are turning to less traditional sources for financing.

The March 31 Wall Street Journal has an interesting article focused on microlenders, who are traditionally nonprofits that focus on boosting small businesses, particularly women and minority entrepreneurs in poorer communities and developing nations. But they are attracting more small business borrowers these days.

The Journal’s report highlights four developments. First, microlenders are lending more. Second, some are lending to businesses that have been around for a decade or two. Third, some businesses that have been around for some time “are using microloans to supplement financing from banks that are lending.” Fourth, those who lost their jobs are turning to microlenders to start up new businesses.

The piece illustrates both the creativity of entrepreneurs in getting the job done, and the ability of the market to adapt and find ways to meet demand, even in tough economic times.

Raymond J. Keating
Chief Economist
Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council

The Employee Free Choice Act – or card check bill – clearly is an unfair sop to labor union bosses.

But is it unconstitutional?

In the March 30 Wall Street Journal, David B. Rivkin Jr. and Lee A. Casey make the case in an op-ed titled “Why Card Check Is Unconstitutional.”

The entire piece warrants reading. But two points are worth noting here:

• The Supreme Court has interpreted the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of speech, along with the Fifth and 14th Amendment due process clauses, to protect a variety of expressive and associational rights. The right to speak and associate anonymously is among those rights. Indeed, anonymous speech has a long and honored tradition in American politics. Much of the political agitation leading up to the American Revolution was necessarily anonymous in order to avoid British sedition charges. And three of the Constitution’s Framers — James Madison, Alexander Hamilton and John Jay — wrote the Federalist Papers supporting its ratification under the anonymous pen name “Publius.”

• There can be little doubt that the act of voting on important issues is a form of symbolic speech, residing at the very core of the interests protected by the Constitution.