Leadership Quote by Michael K. Simpson

“60-80 percent” is the kind of big, elastic statistic politicians love: specific enough to sound researched, wide enough to be unfalsifiable in casual conversation. Simpson’s intent isn’t just to praise small businesses; it’s to position them as the nation’s job engine and, by extension, the most morally deserving constituency in economic policy. In one line, “small business” becomes shorthand for local virtue: entrepreneurs taking risks, main streets holding on, communities staying stitched together.

The subtext is a quiet rebuke to any agenda that centers large corporations, unions, or government programs as primary job creators. If small firms generate most “net new jobs,” then regulation looks like sabotage, taxes read as punishment, and public investment gets recast as secondary. “Net” does heavy lifting here too: it implies an overall, measurable gain, not just churn. That matters because job creation rhetoric often ignores the reality that many jobs are created and destroyed in the same year; “net” suggests a scoreboard where small business is winning.

Contextually, this is classic late-20th/early-21st century American politics, where “small business” functions as a bipartisan talisman: conservatives use it to argue for deregulation and tax relief; moderates use it to sell targeted credits, SBA lending, and local development. The range (60-80) also signals the messiness of the underlying data while still cashing in on the emotional clarity of the claim: back the little guy, and the jobs will follow.