Dear Dirty America

I’d like to direct you the results of a survey administered to over 6000 small business owners that has recently been published online. The study was done by Thumbtack.com and the George Washington University Graduate School of Political Management. I’ll tell you a bit more about Thumbtack.com, but first, the results.

Small business owners were asked in the survey, “What is the single most important issue in your choice for President?” Surprisingly, nobody mentioned kicking Israel off our official list of friends until Benjamin Netanyahu is thrown into Guantanamo Bay for crimes against Palestinians and humanity, in general.

Unsurprisingly, 39.82 percent of small business owners who took the survey listed the economy and jobs as the most important issue.

Falling to a distant second most important was what the survey listed as “Ethics/honesty/corruption in government”. As multiple Twitter users have said in one way or another: Sure, the playing field is still level, but the board is tilted toward Big Business / Wall Street so the moneyballs roll in their direction.

Small businesses in this country make up a significant portion of our economy. As the survey release reminds us, “65 percent of net new jobs created between 1993 and 2009” were created by small businesses. It is of utmost importance that they have an honest market in which they can compete. Corruption and collusion between Wall Street and Washington undermine their confidence and ability to make bold decisions for the future of their business.

That may not have been exactly what survey-takers meant by corruption, ethics, and honesty in government, but hopefully I’m not far off the mark.

A total of 11 percent of business owners listed the most important issue as beating Obama or Romney, depending upon which side of the line their beliefs landed. Five percent thought Obama should be defeated. Six percent thought Romney should be defeated. Silly to think that’s the most important issue for anybody. As if playing favorites in the two-party system has gotten American anywhere for the better.

Last election Obama was Wall Street’s golden boy. This cycle it’s Mitt Romney. Neither president can escape the giant suck of Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, General Electric, and so on.

What is Thumbtack.com?

Thumbtack.com is a service that sets you up with trustworthy small businesses that are able to fulfill your job request. They get quotes from a number of small businesses, and you decide which service provider is best for you.

Because of Thumbtack’s access to so many small business owners, it’s fitting they would undertake this survey to help this nation better understand what is needed economically out of the next president.

When the survey asked respondents about the single most important economic issue, 26.5 percent said it was “unemployment and the job market”.  The next most popular answer was the “federal budget deficit” at 16 percent.

To see the rest of the results, or to view the breakdown between genders, Democrats, Republicans, and Independents, or to check how survey-takers responded in your state, see the survey results for yourself.

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