Republicans and Democrats often stick to opposing sides of any debate, and the leading members of both the House and Senate Small Business Committees are no exceptions.
Although both Rep. Sam Graves (R., Mo.) and his congressional counterpart Sen. Mary Landrieu (D., La.) ran their own small businesses before entering into politics -- Graves in farming and Landrieu in real estate -- where they stand on the big small-business issues, in many cases, couldn't be further apart.
Graves is an unapologetic conservative, who never once voted for any of the stimulus measures -- under Presidents Bush or Obama -- and became chair of the U.S. House Committee on Small Business in January. He thinks the root cause of what's holding small businesses back is government meddling. By contrast, Landrieu is a centrist who has been head of the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship for two years. She holds that while small businesses do indeed have problems, the government can help.
Their respective ideas maybe diametrically opposed, but they do have one thing in common: They both want to do what's best for small businesses. Here's what he said and what she said about the biggest issues affecting small businesses today: