Oh, let’s get political. Why not? Not really. I just want to talk about the bailout and all the conversation it’s generating. I will apologize upfront. My husband is a free market economist. We subscribe to The Economist. You can already see where this is going.

I listened to the partisan politics. Both sides screaming that the people should be getting the bailout, not the financial institutions. I’m not sure exactly how that would happen but wouldn’t that be awesome? A check in the mail for around $ 4,000 to every taxpayer?

I began to argue with my husband about the reasoning for the bailout. I mean, if my business goes under, there is no one to bail me out. With no expectations that the government is going to hand me a blank check, I make careful decisions. If my decisions are wrong, then it’s on me. My husband said that without money, the banks would have no money to loan. Money to loan to whom? Because I couldn’t get a small business loan a year ago and I’m pretty sure I couldn’t get one now. Sure I could if I wanted to use my house as collateral. No, wait. They didn’t want to do that either.

Where is the bailout money going? LOANS TO OTHER BANKS. Not small business owners who have, since the beginning of time, kept the economy going. It’s clear the banks were giving out lots of money to people who couldn’t pay it back. I understand that the amount of small businesses that fail is not insignificant, but I’m having a problem common to lots of small business owners. I have a cash flow problem. I have lots of orders but I won’t get paid until my orders ship. For big orders, I have to ship the product and then the customer has 30 days to pay.

It is moments like this that I hate my friend Wendy. She sells the most adorable hooded kids towels that she makes herself. It takes her tons of time to do, but she only has to buy around 6 different colored towels. Me? 20 sizes, 7 styles, dozens of sayings, and the colors. Oh, the colors. And there are minimums to purchase if I want to keep my costs manageable. The plus with this business was doing my own printing so I could print as I get orders. The thing is, with my expansion came more inventory. But with all these orders, I keep running out of tees. As in, needing only one more. That means I am buying 12 to cover one.

Let’s not even discuss the order I will need to make with my manufacturer to replenish my pregnancy tees. We’re moving from minimums of 12 to minimums of 500. I guess I’ll just be hoping to find yet a little more room on the credit card to cover me yet again. If Congress wants to stimulate the economy, how about taking a chance on small business owners who can clearly pay the money back?