The small business community provides a major portion of all jobs in the country. Yet a major portion of the stimulus plan all but ignores small business. so small in fact it is almost insulting.
If they backed more low interest small business loans for operating expenses and capital expenses, small business would put the country back to work. as well by making funds available to small business the amounts would be smaller per investment hence reduce the risk and the time for recovery. while waiting for a few hundred portals to trickle down this bailout, they could have several thousand vested and passionate small business owners using privately funded loans to grow their respective businesses, shooting cash into local economies almost instantly.
the downside might be the large CEO run companies might actually have to compete, which would surely be good for their stockholders.