Texas should boost its small businesses
November 17, 2008
Small businesses have difficulty accessing capital in tough economic times, just like big firms. But unlike Bear Stearns, Fannie Mae, AIG, small businesses can't count on government bailouts when times are tough.
Written by Editorial, The San Antonio Express-News
According to the Small Business Administration, small businesses represent 99.7 percent of all employer firms in the United States, employ about half of all private sector workers and pay nearly 45 percent of total U.S. private payroll. In Texas in 2005, 336,725 firms with fewer than 20 employees provided 1.4 million jobs and nearly $46 billion in annual payroll.
Small businesses have difficulty accessing capital in tough economic times, just like big firms. But unlike Bear Stearns, Fannie Mae, AIG, small businesses can't count on government bailouts when times are tough.
In Texas, they can't even count on the Legislature funding a modest capital access program of its own design.
The 75th Legislature created the Texas Capital Access Program in 1998. The program mitigates risk to financial institutions making loans to small businesses by matching loan loss reserves on a 1-to-1 to 2-to-1 basis.
Unlike the Texas Enterprise Fund that is used to recruit large businesses to the state and that was capitalized with $295 million in 2003, the Texas Capital Access Program has operated on a shoestring budget.
The $7 million it started with a decade ago has been used to leverage small business loans. But once its assets are allocated for loan loss reserve, those funds aren't replenished, even when the loan is successful.
The last appropriation the Legislature made for the program was $868,978 in 2005. Now the fund is empty.
Rep. Mike Villarreal, D-San Antonio, is among a group of lawmakers who want to revitalize the Texas Capital Access Program.
He is asking Gov. Rick Perry to transfer $2 million from the Texas Enterprise Fund to the program.
With all the hundreds of billions of federal dollars and hundreds of millions of state dollars allocated for big businesses, this is a token amount that can help free up badly needed capital for small businesses that create jobs for Texans.
With a slowing economy affecting businesses large and small, Perry should make those funds available to the Texas Capital Access Program.
And the Legislature should fund the program at a reasonable level for the next biennium.
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