On a conference call about the small business bill today, Senators Jack Reed (D-RI) and Jeff Merkley (D-OR) both strongly supported the Bush tax cut plan put forward by the President, and rejected any proposal for extending the tax cuts at the high end. They also said that the votes look to be there for the small business package when it gets a vote next week, though anything else in the September work period would be very difficult.

Today’s announcement of a $200 billion dollar program to allow businesses to write off their capital expenditures up front in 2010 and 2011 at full cost (which would only cost $30 billion in the long run) hasn’t received the widest reception from the economic profession.

Karl Rove’s money-laundering shop has ordered up a series of ads attacking Democratic Senate candidates. But despite them clearly being electorally focused, Rove’s team tries to make them “issue ads” by adding a bill unrelated to the spots in the end plate.

Despite at least $3 trillion in government spending aimed at stimulating the economy, a multitude of economic indicators now show that the economy is poised to slip into a double dip recession. In order to stave off another dip into further recession Congress and the Obama Administration need to direct federal funds to small businesses.

The Small Business Administration released its Procurement Scorecard late Friday afternoon, showing that once again, the government did not achieve its mandated 23 percent small business procurement goal. Several weeks ago, I made several predictions about this, lets see how accurate I was.

Republicans are indeed being massive idiots with their opposition to this modest measure, which they’ve predicated entirely on not getting the requisite amount of unrelated amendments to the bill. Either that, or they’re deliberately trying to sink the economy. But the bill is so tangential to actual economic growth that its presence or absence won’t have an outsized effect, though I suppose it’s better than nothing.

In remarks made by President Obama yesterday, Senate Republicans were taken to task for their obstruction of the small business lending bill. However, it seems more that the president is unwilling to take a new direction in helping small businesses.

If the Obama administration and Congress wanted to avoid a double-dip recession and spur job creation, then they should focus on fixing fraud and abuses in federal small business contracting programs. These contracting programs can be used as a means of driving demand to small businesses that create over 90 percent of net new jobs.

Too often we’ve seen the White House grab for a compromise they can tout because it has “bipartisan support.” While I don’t think Zandi’s proposal actually has that in Congress – Republicans want permanent tax cuts, not temporary ones – it’s good that, so far, the Administration wants no part of the deal.

Time to test my psychic abilities. The Small Business Administration will be releasing the contracting numbers for fiscal year 2009, which will show another disappointing year for small businesses.