3 Things You Should Know About Small Business: Oct. 25

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- What's happening in small business today?

1. Small-business election issues go beyond taxes and health care. Taxes and health care aren't the only issues on the minds of small-business owners this election season. According to a monthly survey by The Wall Street Journal and Vistage, the economy, access to capital, immigration and even net neutrality are critical issues.

"Neither candidate has done a convincing job to demonstrate that the small-business owner will be better off under his administration," Joel Shulman, associate professor of entrepreneurship at Babson College in Wellesley, Mass., told the Journal.

The October poll surveyed 797 small-business owners and bosses.

The candidates also "blew an opportunity" to appeal to the group "by not providing specific plans for how they might improve access to capital for small businesses," says Pat Dickson, associate professor of strategy and entrepreneurship at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C., in the article. "Without capital, you can't grow."

One issue some small-business owners find critical hasn't been mentioned at all in the debates, but has come up on the campaign trail: whether the government should regulate companies that control the flow of online content to the Internet, otherwise known as net neutrality.

President Barack Obama supports government oversight of Internet-service providers, but Republican candidate Mitt Romney has "indicated that he doesn't believe government should hold that responsibility," the article says. About 22% of this month's respondents said the candidates' opposing views on net neutrality are critically important, the article says.

2. Entrepreneurs expect profit to climb in 2013. While a majority of start-up business owners do not believe the economy will grow in the next 12 months, 83% are confident their own profit will, according to the fourth-quarter Kauffman/LegalZoom Startup Confidence Index, released today by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation and LegalZoom.

The number of business owners who were either somewhat or very confident profit will rise was the highest confidence level expressed by entrepreneurs in any of the 2012 quarterly surveys, Kauffman says.

Among the youngest entrepreneurs -- those 18 to 30 years old -- 93% were confident or very confident their businesses would become more profitable in the next 12 months than they are today. Still, young entrepreneurs confident profits would rise next year have shrunk from the 98% who thought so in the previous quarter's survey.

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