Are President Obama's plans to help small businesses likely to help yours?

No. The current problems are basically credit and confidence. We won't hire new people until we have sales to justify it, enough sales for long enough creates cash, once there is cash we can invest. A tax credit assumes you can pay the salary from cash to eventually get back a tax credit. As for the silly game with payroll tax and wage increases, I can't even begin to imagine the amount of effort required to get it. For how long, what strings in the future?

First we had micro loans (joke), then ARCs promised in 15 days (took 4 months), now those are going away. 5K credit maybe at year end for xK in salary on blind faith that hire and the business will come, nope, backwards.

As for ARC, etc. Christina is correct. Mounds of paperwork, you still have to meet banking criteria (like banks would meet the criteria themselves...), assuming you could find a bank doing it and that cares for the measly profit for them. Still personal guarantees as well. 35K max up to the discretion of I don't know whom. Average small business has 7 FTE, 35K, gee, that's 5K, there's that number again. 5K per person to sustain businesses, not realistic. Meanwhile stimulus jobs came out to maybe 125K or 150K per job created if you can believe those numbers and those seem to mostly not even be permanent jobs.

So, back to credit and confidence. Credit means access to money for working capital or securing cash flow needs for growth, confidence means having enough faith to move forward on a business investment. The plans don't address this.

None of the plans has worked yet so why should we believe that this one will? So far all the money poured into roads and bridges that was supposed to create a lot of new and permanent jobs has created none. Now he wants to do that again as well.

It is beginning to look like we need to spend no time growing our businesses but a lot of time trying to figure out how to find more deductions so that all our money doesn't go to taxes to pay for all the dubious and/or failed plans.

You can plan on suffering until November at least and for another 2 1/2 years at the most. Until you learn that hope and change is not a strategy, you don't and will not have a chance.

Diverting funds to community banks will do little to provide new loans unless:

1) There are enforcable requirements that the recipients lend the money

2) There are viable metrics in place that accurately track whether the money is being provided to borrowers

Neither 1 nor 2 above is true. In general, "diverting" funds for a purpose does not equate to ensuring distribution. Banks (especially troubled regional banks) will hold the cash as long as they can, given the state of the economy.

When can we start talking about tax cuts and not tax credits? The fundamentals of economics aren't present within the administration, and we'll see the effects start to waiver consumer confidence. We were all under the impression that the economy would steadily grow as is the nature of markets; however, the administration has done nothing but deter a recovery with its consistent entitlement rhetoric. Whether it be cap and trade, health-care and now talk of a VAT tax; lenders fears of risk and diminishing R.O.I. will continue to stifle access to capital.

My understanding from others is that banks won't lend to you unless your business is in great health (you probably don't need the loan anyway) so how would this change? I'd like to hire a new employee, but without funds to tap into if contracts are slow, I can't.

Why not do a matching grant program - bank loans you $25K and matching grant gives you $25K? That way the businesses who need help to get through this time have funds to market, hire, etc, and the banks see a buffer before their funds are tapped.