If there is one thing obvious from this administration , its that they don’t understand entrepreneurs and small business. President Obama happily has the CEOs of major multi-national corporations who have never started a business in their lives advising him. I could be wrong be I don’t believe he understands how businesses are started or how small businesses are run. A 1 year tax credit is not going to create jobs. No company is going to hire a new full time employee because of a 1 year tax credit. Has the President ever seen what it costs to fire someone and potentially pay them after they are gone ? Either the demand for that employee is there or it is not. No one hires because of a single year tax credit.

Do the President and Speaker of the House know that every little modification to the tax laws is a tax itself because it requires hiring a professional to help navigate the taxation and human resources mine field ? How much fun would it be to make the President deal with payroll and HR issues for a 25 or 50 person company for a couple months

I wish President Obama and Speaker Boehner could have come to the set of Shark Tank to watch us film the upcoming season. Over the course of 12 long days we sat and listened to more than 70 entrepreneurs come in and pitch their businesses to us. Some were well on their way to success and were looking for some expertise. Some needed capital and expertise that they couldn’t get elsewhere. Some had their backs up against the wall for any number of reasons and faced losing their dreams. Each entrepreneur had a reason to be on Shark Tank and was on the carpet being peppered with questions by myself and my fellow Sharks as we decided whether or not to invest. I can tell you that dealing with the costs of overwhelming bureaucracy was always a far greater problem than taxation. Why ? Because taxes come AFTER PROFITS. The price of dealing with bureaucracy, patents, professional fees and of course competition had a far nastier impact on their ability to succeed than tax rates. Out of those pitches, I invested in more than a few companies, and on not one did I ask them to guess what their after tax profits would be. Yet for some reason Congress and the President seem fixated on tax rates as the pivot point for creating jobs. It is not.

Someone in a position of power in Washington needs to start paying more than lip service to the needs of entrepreneurs and small businesses. They are where growth in jobs will come from and more importantly where “the next big thing” that will accelerate us out this economic malaise will come from as well.

Mr. President, Speaker of the House Boehner, if either of both of you would like a private screening of our pitches so you can see first hand what the real business world is all about, I’m sure I can work something out with ABC ….

In conclusion… these are all just streams of thought. What does everyone think ? I’m open to learning more on all of these topics.