Small Business on the Shutdown

Who's worried about a government shutdown? Not the small business community. CNBC's John Carney reports on a new study by Pepperdine University's Graziadio School of Business and Management. It finds that amongst small business owners and their lenders, nearly half—48 percent—actually support a government shutdown. Just 39 percent are opposed. Even more telling? A much larger percentage isn't terribly worried about potential effects on their business, either: "84.4 percent of small business owners believe there will be no impact on privately-held companies from a one-day shutdown; tapers to 75.7 percent for one week; 60.6 percent for two weeks," writes Carney. In other words, they're pretty sanguine about the shutdown so long as it's a relatively brief affair, which, if a shutdown occurs, is probably the most likely outcome.

At this point in the afternoon, it's not even clear whether or not there will be a shutdown at all. A spokeperson for House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) just told The Washington Post that the Republican leader is "hopeful" there will be a deal within a couple of hours. Seems as if all of Washington is watching, but I don't think there's a lot of real drama here. A shutdown may not be a great idea, and I think Republicans were foolish to make a stand over a relatively minor package of cuts. But at least in the short term, it also wouldn't exactly be a catastrophe. We can do without non-essential government functions for a few days. There's just not that much at stake, in the grand scheme of things, and small business owners seem to understand that a shutdown won't drastically change the way they do business.