Small-business Loans Teetering on Fiscal Cliff

So much of the discourse on the fiscal cliff has focused on the likely effects of raising taxes on the middle class and the wealthy, which has overshadowed the bigger issue at hand: how to avoid raising taxes on the one vehicle that can get the economy moving—small businesses.

Simply put, the economy does well when small businesses thrive and create jobs. And small businesses thrive when they are given access to capital for growth. But small business lending has dramatically decreased since the 2008 crash, and currently, banks are approving only 10 percent of applications.