**Note: We are republishing each of the 22 challenges from Catherine’s fiscal cliff article – one a week. Helps to digest them bit by bit!**

By Catherine Austin Fitts

The use of the federal budget to centralize political and economic control has had devastating consequences for small business and farms, resulting in significant decreases in employment, income and household wealth, and therefore, tax revenues.

Government regulation and enforcement (including antitrust policy, health care, food safety rules, and Agenda 21), as well as policies that impact the allocation of capital, are designed to benefit the government and large agribusiness and corporations at the cost of small business. This is not unrelated to the fact that the greatest source of political contributions comes from capital gains – profits on corporate stocks and bonds, on securities and financial assets and on real estate. Consequently, facilitating large corporate access to federal largesse or promoting policies that allow corporations to increase local market share, result in corporate profits that generate campaign contributions. Not surprisingly, one recent study, based on data compiled by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, placed the United States second to last out of 22 rich nations in the percentage of workers who run their own businesses.

The growth of student loan debt is related to this phenomenon, leaving graduates in a position they feel pressured to work for the military or large banks and corporations instead of taking entrepreneurial risks and starting or joining small businesses.

For a very interesting description of the relationship of the health of small farmers to the domestic GNP, see Charles Walters’ fascinating book on the U.S. economy, Unforgiven.