Wealth & Money Quote by Rob Simmons

The line is built to sound like policy while functioning as coalition glue. Simmons starts with the safest civic liturgy in American politics: small businesses as the “backbone” of the economy. It’s a phrase that flatters entrepreneurs, reassures moderates, and pre-empts accusations of big-government favoritism. No one has to ask what kind of economy, who benefits most, or which industries are being protected; “backbone” does the work of moralizing the marketplace.

Then the sentence pivots to a more contemporary imperative: “increase opportunities for everyone,” immediately narrowed into a specific mechanism - helping women and minority-owned businesses. That narrowing is the real message. It frames equity not as redistribution or regulation, but as entrepreneurship, access to capital, and participation in the existing game. The subtext is strategic: you can advocate for targeted support without triggering the cultural backlash that words like “affirmative action” or “structural racism” might provoke. “Opportunity” is the compromise term, a values-word that suggests fairness while staying friendly to business interests.

Contextually, this sits in the post-civil-rights, pro-market political tradition where inclusion is sold as economic efficiency. The claim isn’t just that helping underrepresented owners is morally right; it’s that it strengthens the economy everyone already reveres. That’s why the repetition of “We’ve got to” matters: it manufactures urgency and consensus, positioning the speaker as practical rather than ideological. The promise is uplift with minimal conflict - a politics of expansion, not confrontation.