Become A Champion For Entrepreneurs Now

Entrepreneurs and government operate at different speeds. As policymakers pursue the adoption of new policies to support everyday Americans opening new businesses, they can also leverage the unique powers associated with their public offices to champion entrepreneurs today. Below is a list of tangible, actionable steps that federal policymakers can pursue now.

• Use the State of the Union and other public addresses and events to highlight the importance of entrepreneurs to the American experiment and economy.
• Make a permanent director for entrepreneurship position within the White House whose job is to rationalize, coordinate, and improve federal policy as it relates to new business creation. Previous administrations housed an assistant director for entrepreneurship in the Office of Science and Technology Policy, but the position should be elevated.
• Ask the Congressional Research Service or Government Accountability Office to review the most significant federal regulations within select departments and agencies that affect the creation and growth of new businesses.
• Add “entrepreneurship” to the House Small Business Committee name. The Senate Small Business Committee was established in 1940, but in 2001, the name was changed to the Senate Small Business and EntrepreneurshipCommittee. The House committee should do the same.
• Request that the Small Business Administration (SBA) administrator examine ways the SBA can better support Americans starting new businesses, in addition to the role the agency plays in supporting established small businesses.
• Create a House Entrepreneurship Caucus to complement the recently established bipartisan Senate Entrepreneurship Caucus.
• Hold congressional hearings, including with entrepreneurs testifying, to guide the development and implementation of policies that reduce barriers to entrepreneurship.
• Support federal data collection efforts to better understand entrepreneurship at a granular level in order to appropriately target national and local interventions that reduce barriers to new business creation. When able, make data public for use by state and local governments, entrepreneur support organizations, and researchers.