From COVID shutdowns to government shutdowns, small businesses are pawns in Washington D.C’s game

Op-ed views and opinions expressed are solely those of the author.

Five Senate Democrats need to sign the continuing resolution to open the government, but finding bipartisanship in DC is taking a back seat to political vengeance and taxpayer subsidies. Tuesday’s elections have now emboldened the extreme fringe, metastasizing this polarization found in the halls of Congress and the political landscape at large.

During her presidential campaign, Vice President Kamala Harris claimed that 1/3 of small businesses had permanently shuttered during the pandemic. Of the remaining small businesses that weathered the COVID storm, they now face another shutdown due to another virus: extreme partisanship.

“The government shutdown costs the U.S. economy roughly $7 to $9 billion per week, and every week it continues, that figure grows,” said Bruce de Torres of the American Small Business League. “The shutdown is directly hurting small businesses, which are 99.9% of all businesses in America. And whenever it ends, billions will continue to be lost in the U.S. economy for weeks—maybe months— until everything catches back up. Nothing justifies this. Everyone should tell Congress and the White House to solve this problem immediately.”

Last week, numerous labor unions demanded Democrats sign a clean continuing resolution, and this week, hundreds of tourism businesses have echoed these demands to reopen the government, warning:

“America’s travel economy has already lost more than $4 billion due to the shutdown, and those losses grow significantly with each passing day.

Travel spending during the holiday generates billions of dollars in economic activity, supporting jobs, local tax bases, and small businesses nationwide. A continued shutdown is likely to significantly suppress travel demand and spending, creating a real threat to American workers, businesses, and the overall economy.

The cost of continued inaction will be felt by families, workers, businesses, and communities in every part of the country.

Now is the moment to demonstrate leadership and prevent a Thanksgiving travel crisis.”

With the expiration of SNAP benefits that will only be partially funded through November per judicial order, another Thanksgiving crisis is on the horizon for small businesses.

Yet, faced with even more uncertainty from Washington, D.C., small business owners are doing what they do best: serving the public despite being “pawns” in a political game.

“If we start getting into a holiday season and people have gone weeks without food in their cabinets, it’s going to really be concerning,” said independent grocer Ronn Garry. “Just like our customers, the bills don’t stop just because everything else stops…And we’re just pawns in their larger game.”

The Boston Globe reports:

“William Masters, a professor of food policy and economics at Tufts University, said hardships won’t just be felt by SNAP recipients or the stores that serve them. They’ll likely stretch throughout the community, as families make choices about how best to spend their limited funds.

Landlords might not get rent. Car dealerships might not see sales or monthly payments. Child care providers may see families pull back on their hours.

“People will likely begin reallocating funds from other things to afford groceries,” he said. “A lot of the pain will be felt by people selling other things to the SNAP recipients’ population.”

Near back-to-back government-mandated shutdowns due to different viruses, small businesses are once again pawns in Washington, D.C.’s game. It is past time for Democrats to snap out of it and reopen the government by passing the continuing resolution so the engine of our economy can survive and continue to serve our local communities.

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