KOSU News

April 13, 2011

At the National Federation of Independent Business, a powerful lobbying voice for small business, a spokesman said they are not actively involved in the debt limit issue.

To Steve Bell of the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington, that doesn’t make sense. “I’ve gotta tell you that, especially for smaller business, any increase in interest rates — or anybody who gets nervous in the bond market and starts to ask for higher rates to buy our debt — that’s really going to hurt lending.”

Bell says business as a whole is taking a big risk by not pressing Congress to fix the debt limit.

“I find it a mystery,” he says. “Perhaps they’re afraid of offending the majority in the House or the Senate. Perhaps they figure [the debt limit bill is] going to pass no matter what, so they’re not going to get involved to protect themselves from any unintended consequence.”

Read the full article here

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Economic Policy Project