Help for America Pt. 1 – What lies ahead for small businesses?

After such a devastating blow to the Nation’s economy that not only was felt by most Americans but also by many people around the world, as one market crashed after the other, it is quite understandable why many small business owners have felt uneasy to move forward without hesitantly looking back.

This past week a bill went before the Senate that would create a $30 billion government fund to help community banks increase lending to small businesses.

“Everywhere I go, I hear from small business owners who simply cannot get the credit they need to hire and expand,” Obama said. “And we’ve been hearing from smaller community banks that they want to lend to these folks but need more capital to do it.”

Obama told Republican congressional leaders that “the provisions of this bill are things the Republican Party has said it’s supported for years: helping small businesses, cutting taxes, making credit available.”

The Small Business Jobs Act would eliminate capital gains on certain investments and increase deductions from new equipment and other expenses.

However, when the vote came to the floor, Republicans filibustered the measure by a vote of 58 (in favor of cloture) to 42 (against).

“It’s not going to die,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell spokesman Don Steward noted. “We just want to have amendments considered. They made a start, allowing three…so we’re making progress.”

Across the Tampa Bay Area, businesses have had to close their doors, lay off employees, cut back on benefits, or make numerous other changes over the last years.

Vanessa Karl, a Bay Area dog groomer said, “Due to having regular customers and word of mouth referrals and also having made changes to my location, things seemed to have stabilized. However, we have also lost customers due to their own circumstances.”

Although it is said the economy is coming back and people are getting hired, are people feeling confident enough to once again expand their businesses, start a new business and once again look forward to the American Dream?

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The past and future is in the Bay Area’s rich cultural diversity

The Bay Area and its surroundings are what postcards are made of, not only for its natural beauty and historical areas but also for the numerous amusement parks and endless shopping availability. The Bay Area has it all. For the Bay Area’s residents however, this is just a few of the many assets to their advantage.

In a follow-up to my previous article, another asset the Bay Area has is its rich cultural diversity. To go around the Bay Area and its surrounding counties, it is easy to find nearly any type of ethnic cuisine a person would want or any grocery item for a recipe. There are constant festivals going on and this of course, is a popular tourist attraction as well. But, it has been so much more for the area’s history and it can be an even greater asset to the Bay Area’s future.

To grow up around diversity is to have a chance of growth everyday in one’s life with the development of key skills necessary in life such as compassion for others, tolerance, understanding and the desire to reach out to learn, educate, help and be there for each other every day for anyone. It’s a chance to build core values as well as to learn about different cultures having not even traveled to those distant places. It is having a chance to see a friend as a friend and a doctor as a doctor and not looking at them differently because of where they may be from but smiling and loving them just because they made you feel better. That’s what it was like for me growing up in the Bay Area.

The future of the Bay Area and its opportunities are all still there and even more so because of the growth that is happening by leaps and bounds. Also, the cultural expansion is even more diverse than ever before. When someone brings their profession from someplace else, let’s say to the medical field, engineering, communications, etc, they bring with them their outside expertise. As an American travels abroad to work, they take their expertise with them to help overseas. This is the same thing, yet reversed.

The Bay Area has the opportunity to be the leader in how to make diversity work for everyone and to show this both locally, nationally and internationally. Although than words can make changes, actions will make a remarkable and lasting difference. By making efforts in the work place, in schools and just around town, word will spread. Changes can happen on Twitter in 140 characters or less quite rapidly as everyone has seen. Good changes are the ones the Bay Area wants to get noted for and right now, the U.S. can use positive example. Tampa can be the positive influence for the state, the nation and the world.

“You must be the change you wish to see in the world.” Mahatma Gandhi

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