“Behind every small business, there’s a story worth knowing. All the corner shops in our towns and cities, the restaurants, cleaners, gyms, hair salons, hardware stores — these didn’t come out of nowhere.” - Former Speaker of the House of Representatives Paul Ryan, R-Wis.
The proposed ‘big, beautiful bill’ — which should be called the Budget Busting Bill (BBB) — is purposefully designed to be too much for the average American to comprehend; even Republican Congress members don’t know what is included in their own bill.
The GOP is wanting to overwhelm the public, while motivating their base, by refusing to tell the truth about the negative impact of the BBB.
If the BBB is passed as it now stands, Georgia and the USA are about to lose one of the most effective programs ever created to help small business: SCORE (formerly The Service Corps of Retired Executives). As former GOP Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., once said, “We have to get away from the class warfare and recognize that we are growing jobs by helping small business.”
SCORE’s budget is minimal, but its ROI is high
Credit: Contributed
Credit: Contributed
Created in a bipartisan manner over 60 years ago, nonprofit SCORE has assisted 17 million entrepreneurs to start and/or grow their businesses.
There are 10,000 unpaid volunteer business mentors; SCORE is in every state. Just last year, there were almost 53,000 new businesses with over 84,000 jobs created as a result of SCORE’s work.
SCORE receives about 70% of its extremely small $24 million operating budget from the federal government via the Small Business Administration (SBA).
The remaining 30% comes from local grants and donations. Therefore, the federal return on investment (ROI) is extremely high.
I was once a Republican, but my party’s no longer fiscally conservative
Before we get into the details, let me give you a bit of personal background. Although I am a traditional liberal regarding social policy, I believe in free enterprise. I am a proven fiscal conservative who believes in a balanced government budget on the local, state and federal levels.
I was a corporate senior vice president/vice president with national firms for decades, concentrating on ROI and strategic planning. When I decided to leave the corporate world and give back, I became chair of a rural Georgia County Commission and head of their county Republican Party. Under my leadership, we reduced county tax increases from 10% annually to just 1%. And improved services.
However, in the last decade, the GOP has tried to drag us back to the 1950s regarding social policy — typified by their refusal to acknowledge historical facts regarding discrimination and racism. Led by former Democrat Donald Trump, who bankrupted six businesses, national Republicans have moved away from fiscal responsibility. And toward massive national debt creation via tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations. So, I switched parties.
Per the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the GOP’s BBB will create exorbitant debt that our children and grandchildren will have to pay back. This has already happened as a result of Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, which caused massive deficits in Trump’s first term (a fact that the GOP chooses to ignore).
The CBO projects that the BBB will increase federal deficits even more, by another $2.4 trillion over 10 years. Regarding Medicaid, it will result in nearly 11 million more people being uninsured over the next decade. And the BBB cuts other vital services, like health care research. All this so that Trump’s disastrous 2017 tax cuts for the wealthy, like him and his billionaire buddies, can be preserved.
Return the GOP to its roots representing entrepreneurs
For simplicity, I will examine just one example of the irrationality of the bill, the elimination of the SCORE program, an organization that I have been part of for 15 years. SCORE small business mentors, like me, are unpaid volunteers. We do what we do simply to help others.
In Georgia, there are chapters in Atlanta, Columbus, Middle Georgia (Macon), North Metro Atlanta, Northeast Georgia, Savannah and South Georgia. In 2024 alone, Georgia’s SCORE unpaid volunteer mentors helped to get over 2,500 new businesses started, resulting in nearly 4,000 new jobs.
We are all unpaid volunteers, so the federal ROI is astronomical. But minimal national funding ($17 million) is required for administering the program on the federal and local levels. And that is what the BBB has cut out.
Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas once said: “Republicans are and should be the party of small business and of entrepreneurs.”
Please contact your members of Congress to remind them of this statement. Forcefully ask that funding for SCORE be added back into the BBB.
Jack Bernard, a retired business executive and former chair of the Jasper County Commission and Republican Party, was the first director of health planning for Georgia.
About the Author
Keep Reading
The Latest
Featured
