Small Businesses Cheer 'New Sheriff in Town' After Climate Pact Exit
By LANDON THOMAS Jr.JUNE 2, 2017
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/02/b...sses.html?_r=0
As news that President Trump was pulling out of the Paris climate accord hit at a luncheon for small-business owners in Toledo, Ohio, on Thursday,
an already happy crowd suddenly turned euphoric.
"It was like a major win at a football game," said Rick Longenecker, a management consultant who had been among the 50 or so attendees who gathered to trade thoughts
amid a rapidly improving local economy.
While multinational corporations such as Disney, Goldman Sachs and IBM have opposed the president's decision to walk away from the international climate agreement, many small companies around the country were cheering him on, embracing the choice as a tough-minded business move that made good on Mr. Trump's commitment to put America's commercial interests first.
This full-throated support from the small-business community comes even as the Trump administration struggles to advance health care legislation and tax reform plans through Congress...
...In Michigan, Ohio, Missouri and beyond, many small businesses are
reporting improved sales and bigger work forces — regardless of what is going on in Washington.
"We've had customers who
actually brought business back from Mexico that we haven't done in
seven years," said Bill Polacek, president of JWF Industries, a manufacturer in Johnstown, Pa.
While local business leaders acknowledge that little has been done by the administration so far in terms of
turning promises into law, especially with regard to health care and taxes, most are not yet ready to blame the president.
"There is a new sheriff in town," said Louis M. Soltis, the owner of a company in Toledo that manufactures control panels for large factories.
"But the biggest frustration that I have is that there is so much resistance that is keeping him from moving forward."...
...For those more concerned with their local economies than global greenhouse gas emissions, walking away from the Paris agreement was just another example of
a bottom-line business decision made by a president who knows a good deal from a bad one.
"This just
heightens the divide between big business and small business," said Jeffrey Korzenik, an investment strategist for Fifth Third Bank in Cincinnati who spends much of his time talking to small businesses in the Midwest.
"They really have different worldviews."
At the root of this disconnect is a sense that companies that employ up to a few hundred workers — such companies make up
99 percent of businesses in the United States and account for half of its private sector employment — are
held to a more onerous standard than their larger peers when it comes to complying with regulations....