Controlling What You Can is our new series dedicated to asking YOU what matters most on the major policy topics that face the nation. This post is a recap of a poll we put out on 5/3/2025. If you want to join the conversation, keep an eye on your inbox and check us out on X – we ask a new question every week. Want to join the conversation? Sign up here and follow us on X.
We asked you all two big questions about our small business policy as a nation. The first was a general overview question of “how do you feel small businesses and entrepreneurs are faring in the current economic environment?”
Most of you believe that our current economic policies are not favorable to small businesses and entrepreneurs (by the way, if you want to add your thoughts to this slider, or leave a comment on the page, you can do so here).
After that, we dug into more detail – we asked you “Which policies are most critical for government to support our small businesses and entrepreneurs?”
In one of our most balanced and nuanced set of answers yet, Forwardists were very split on their opinion on small business support. About 60% of you think we aren’t doing enough to support our small business owners and employees, but about 40% of you think we are doing a pretty good job.
For policy proposals, reducing regulations and lowering tariffs were nearly tied, with lower taxes and small business loan increases garnering a respectable if smaller subset of support.
You all sounded off in the comment sections on X and our website and two core themes came to the forefront:
Regulations Need To Be Smart
- Often, the government imposes regulations that have good intentions but only seem to serve the mega corporations. The government needs to be smarter about how it applies regulations, allowing fewer loopholes to ensure the right outcome is ensured.
Tariffs Are About To Strangle The Small Businesses On Main Street
- Over the next few weeks as the full effect of the tariff program the Trump regime is implementing begin to be felt, many of you predict that small businesses across the country will start closing their doors. Perhaps repatriating manufacturing to the US is a good thing, but the pain the tariffs will cause regular Americans is about to be too high for many of you to stand.