CNN Money/Fortune Small Business just ran an interesting online article about how both major parties try to woo entrepreneurs.

They went after the Elephants for misleading small business owners with tax cuts of which they will likely never benefit:

That "average small business" includes millions of wealthy individuals (including Cheney and President Bush) who derive a portion of their income from consulting or investments in small companies. Most real small-business owners got much less.

And the Bush administration financed its tax cuts with borrowed money that must eventually be paid back via benefit cuts or tax increases. According to estimates by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center in Washington, D.C., more than half of all tax filers with small-business income wind up worse off once the cost of financing the cuts is taken into account.

Meanwhile, an increasing number of small businesses get snared every year by the alternative minimum tax (AMT). The AMT was originally aimed at a couple hundred wealthy taxpayers. But the AMT's guidelines have not been adjusted for inflation since 1986, and today an increasing number of middle-income taxpayers - including thousands of small businesses - are forced to pay it.

The trend was exacerbated by the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, which ironically forced even more taxpayers into the AMT by lowering their marginal income tax rates. In speeches President Bush frequently argues that lower income taxes help small-business owners because most entrepreneurs are taxed as individuals. He conveniently fails to mention that the AMT trap negates much of that benefit.

They went after the Donkeys, too:

Most Democrats are no better. As members of a party that has traditionally favored higher taxes, increased regulation and trial lawyers, their efforts to champion entrepreneurship can border on the ridiculous.

Democrats routinely trash the Bush administration for slashing the SBA's budget and attempting (unsuccessfully) to eliminate its loan guarantee programs, which purport to create jobs by helping startup businesses get off the ground.

But in fact SBA loans benefit a tiny number of politically connected entrepreneurs (less than 1 percent of all businesses), along with the banking industry, which earns billions in loan interest and securitization revenues while allowing taxpayers to shoulder some $70 billion in default risk. By creating an uneven playing field, SBA loans in effect hurt the vast majority of U.S. small businesses that must compete without federal help.

In the end, Libertarian wisdom was realized:

In the end, the wisest opinion may come from someone who belongs to neither party. "Democrats claim to appeal to the little guy and Republicans claim to be the champions of businesses," says Mark Schreiber, an Indiana entrepreneur and former national marketing director for the Libertarian Party. "But neither cares about the little guy with a business."

Perhaps people are beginning to wake up to the fact that only one political party is truly the champion of small business: The Libertarian Party.