Trump’s wrong decision for small business in America

This month, Donald Trump announced that he chose businesswoman Linda McMahon to run the Small Business Administration (SBA). The agency’s administrator is one of the most important positions in a president’s cabinet.

I think the president-elect has made a terrible choice.

Let’s start by reflecting on the role of small business in America. Small businesses are and have always been the economic engine that drives our country. Fostering entrepreneurship in the United States is absolutely crucial.

{mosads}After all, entrepreneurship is a paramount driver for addressing wealth inequality, creating social mobility for all. Entrepreneurs and the businesses they run create jobs and new economic sectors. Giving individuals of all backgrounds the opportunity to create a business for themselves is a huge part of what has made America great. Never has this been more important than today.

The SBA is central to the federal government’s efforts to support entrepreneurs in America, as the country progresses and modernizes. The agency is recognized as vital for the long-term success of entrepreneurial ventures. In 2012, President Obama moved the SBA administration to a cabinet-level position, making it on par with the likes of the Department of Defense and Department of Treasury.

President-elect Trump will be the first new president to control the SBA at this high administrative level. That’s a huge opportunity.

Now let’s connect the dots. The SBA supports America’s 28 million small businesses, which create the majority of U.S. jobs. The agency is responsible for the employment of about half of America’s private-sector workforce, according to the SBA’s website. The role of SBA administrator is perhaps one of the most important cabinet choices the president-elect makes. This decision is tied to fostering innovation and advancing the freedom of opportunity for all. The agency’s mission lies at the heart and soul of America.

The current SBA administrator, Maria Contreras-Sweet, has the exact résumé that one would want and expect in someone running this vital federal organization. She has founded three successful businesses, including a community bank in downtown Los Angeles focused on small and midsize businesses. She served as California’s secretary of the Business, Transportation and Housing Agency, where she oversaw 44,000 employees, a $14 billion budget and 14 state departments (and on top of that, California is the largest economy in the country, known for its thriving entrepreneurial ecosystem).

Contreras-Sweet is a founding director of The California Endowment, a $3 billion foundation dedicated to improving the health status of Californians. She has spent her entire career building and growing small businesses and dedicating herself to the communities they serve.

Linda McMahon, on the other hand, has little on her résumé to recommend her for the position. The Republican is the former chief executive officer of World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) who, along with her husband, is estimated by to have a net worth of more than $1 billion. In selecting her for the role, Trump has once again tapped a billionaire friend with no national policy experience or knowledge to join his administration.

McMahon has founded and run exactly one business that focuses on a “sport” featuring grown men bashing chairs over each other’s heads. Does this really qualify her to relate to small business and support entrepreneurial initiatives?

She has held but one job in public service when she was appointed to the Connecticut Board of Education (and then resigned after just more than a year in the role). She ran for Senate in 2010 and 2012. She lost both campaigns. Her main qualification for Trump’s cabinet appears to be that she donated $6 million to his campaign. If we want cabinet seats to go to unqualified candidates who bought them, she’s an excellent choice.

We’re at a unique moment in the history of the United States, where wealth is concentrated at the top. Corporate mergers have contributed to that concentration, with most sectors of the economy now dominated by multibillion dollar mega-companies. That’s part of normal economic cycles, but most economists will tell you that small businesses need to continue to be vibrant in every sector, creating innovation that will eventually displace the biggest corporations. That’s what happens in a healthy economy.

Trump is already going to have a cabinet full of billionaires who will stand up for the large companies such as ExxonMobil and Goldman Sachs. That makes it much more important that the SBA administrator be the voice in the room passionately advocating for small businesses and entrepreneurs.

The SBA’s mission includes “helping Americans start, build and grow businesses.” As someone who has spent his whole career building startups (and who teaches about it as a lecturer at Stanford University), I believe entrepreneurship is core to growing our economy in an inclusive way that generates opportunity for all. The leadership of the Small Business Administration is too important to hand over to a Trump crony whose only business experience is running a multibillion dollar entertainment company that stands for misogyny and violence. We can do better.

Bret Waters is the chief executive officer of Tivix, a company that helps global clients build digital products. He is teaches about business strategy, innovation and entrepreneurship as a lecturer at Stanford University.

The views of Contributors are their own and are not the views of The Hill.