As a local small business owner who, like many others, has seen his activity decline during the past two years, I wrestle with changing my business plan, modifying my products and services, and generally reinventing my work, possibly for a different market niche. And I wonder what sort of outside help I’ll get, if any, from the public sector.

With fears of a double-dip recession, continuing high unemployment in California (and locally), and evidence that small business employment is lagging, I wonder about the positions of local 3rd District Congressional candidates on whom we’ll be voting in November: incumbent Dan Lungren and challenger Ami Bera. Where do they stand on credit availabiliy?  Tax incentives?  Jobs and small business development?  Public-private partnerships?

According to the Labor Department, small businesses employ over half of American workers and create nearly two out of every three new private sector jobs. Many economists believe the recession had ended by the 4th quarter of 2009, but small businesses lagged, recording more job cuts that quarter than new jobs, something of a reversal from the prior year – largely because access to credit was (and still is) tight.

From the recession’s start, loans to small business dropped from over $710 billion to less than $670 billion in the 1st quarter of 2010 (according to bank reports submitted to the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council), a problem that Ben Bernanke in July asserted was “front and center among our current policy challenges.”

Enter congressional bills to ease lending and tax exemptions for small business development.

The House passed its version in June 2010 containing a $30 billion small business lending fund, to be managed by the Treasury Department for loans by (small) community banks to small business, a $2 billion small business credit initiative for States to target small technology firms, and an increased tax exemption for sales of small business stock.

A similar Senate version, however, was blocked by a Republican filibuster in late July. This bill also contained the new $30 billion lending fund, along with more than $12 billion in tax breaks and expansion of existing lending programs. (Ironically, several Republicans helped write the Senate bill and it was supported by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Federation of Independent Business, typically Republican allies.)  The Senate finally passed the bill in mid-September with bipartisan support, and after House reconciliation, it was signed by President Obama September 27th.

So where do our local District 3 candidates stand?

The popular wisdom is that incumbent and conservative career politician Lungren is a champion of small business. Maybe not. He voted against the House small business bill in June and has offered little more than failed (thus far) legislation to ease small business financial reporting contained in the health reform act.

While voting against $30 billion and tax breaks for small business, aka Main Street, Lungren readily voted for the much larger, $700 billion, TARP bailout of Wall Street financial institutions, even in its original, arguably flawed and failed version. While touting his pro-jobs position and Chamber of Commerce support, Lungren doesn’t appear to walk the talk when it comes to voting for jobs and small business – Main Street.

By contrast, the challenger, Dr. Bera, appears far more sympathetic toward local small business, unveiling his economic plan in June to create jobs and stimulate economic recovery – a plan highlighted by measures to empower small business through improved access to financing, expanded and simplified SBA loan programs, and stronger community bank lending power, along with small business R&D tax credits, a simplified business tax code and, importantly, further reform of healthcare to allay costs that can debilitate small business: all reforms that can stimulate small business development.

Bera’s plan also supports “cleaning up Wall Street” and the corporate excesses that brought the economy down, and working with his constituents, he intends to identify regional economic opportunities, public-private partnerships, particularly in emerging technology, clean energy and health care industries – an agenda for Main Street.

The author is a political economist and small business owner in Sacramento whose firm consults with colleges and universities in the United States, Canada and United Kingdom.