A Bipartisan Jobs Bill that Would Work

By Charlie Thomas, CEO Razorsight

In his new book, That Used To Be Us, Pulitzer prize-winning and best-selling author Thomas Friedman describes how America has lost its way, and what we must do to regain our global leadership position.

He outlines a roadmap for recovery, but it's difficult to envision our political leaders mustering the courage and vision necessary to step aside from the partisan battles and create government reforms and policies necessary to lead America back. One of America's great entrepreneurs, AOL and Revolution Founder Steve Case, who now leads President Obama's Startup America Partnership, has been making numerous public appearances lately to speak about the need to spur entrepreneurship as the foundation for job creation. In his talks, Mr. Case points out that America was created based on this entrepreneurial spirit and that it has defined our rise to the largest economy in the world. He also mentions economic data that suggests greater than 65% of all jobs are created by Small Businesses.

Given the political stalemate in Washington, how do we get politicians out of the way and regain America's global leadership position?

I have a straightforward, bipartisan plan that achieves all the key points our political leaders have found so elusive. This plan offers the following benefits:

1. Spurs Small Business Creation, Entrepreneurship and therefore job creation in all 50 states.
2. Provides much-needed seed capital to small businesses, start-ups and budding entrepreneurs. (As an Angel investor for much of the last decade and board member at several startups, I can tell you that access to seed capital remains a major challenge for entrepreneurs.)
3. Provides the foundation for America to regain our Innovation advantage by spearheading R&D and New Ideas.
4. Keeps jobs onshore and increases the tax base for the nation and for each of the 50 states.
5. Keeps our best and brightest university graduates in the US (allocates a subset pool in each state to fund recent graduates – within last 5 years).
6. Creates a path for early retirement for tens of thousands of folks employed by major US companies, thereby freeing up tens of thousands of jobs on those payrolls as well.
7. Eliminates the unintended consequences that so often occur when Washington enacts new policies.

So what's the plan?

Our government has invested well over a trillion dollars in several different economic stimulus programs. The success of the stimulus programs is debated by many. My plan is much more direct and drives government stimulus closer to the very people who need it the most – the average American middle to lower class consumer. Specifically our Federal Government should work in close partnership with each State Government to create this jobs program:

• Allocate $100 Billion to the Entrepreneur Creation Act
• Spread this $100 Billion Allocation across all 50 states with $2 Billion to each State solely earmarked to invest directly in small businesses and startup companies ($10 million in revenue and under)
• Commit to funding this program for each of the next five years

This program would spread investment across all states and encourage job creation in each and every state. At present several states have state government backed startup investment funds, but they cannot move the meter because these state incubator funds are far too small. Virginia and Maryland for example have approximately $1 million funds that invest only $25,000 or so in startups — most often not enough to incentivize and justify the risk for many entrepreneurs in waiting. Let's give the states more to work with, place proven, business and investment professionals in charge of overseeing these investments and watch America regain our innovative spirit and global entrepreneurial leadership.

To sum it up, I'm waiting for one of the Presidential hopefuls to seize upon Bill Clinton's famous phrase used so successfully against George Bush in the 1992 election, "It's the Economy Stupid."
The 2012 candidate should coin the phrase, "It's the Entrepreneur Stupid."

About the writer:
Charlie Thomas is the CEO of Razorsight, a ten year old software company that provides Cloud based Analytics to communications providers. He has 17 years experience as an entrepreneur including founding and leading Net2000 from start-up to IPO, then growth to $150 Million in revenue. Charlie has founded and sold five companies since becoming an entrepreneur in 1993. Charlie also wrote and published a book Entrepreneur. He has served on the boards of a dozen start-ups, presently serves on five boards, and has made Angel investments in more than fifteen companies.