LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - Corey Shaker, CEO of Hometown Auto Retailers, a dealership chain based in Waterbury, Connecticut says that car sales are bouncing back. He also said that some potential customers may have second thoughts about buying due to government gridlock and bickering among lawmakers.

"Consumer confidence moves the economy," he said. "The biggest single thing they can do (in Washington) to boost the economy is to boost confidence. And to do that, consumers have to believe that there is leadership that can get their act together to make the spending cuts on stuff we don't need.

Recent headlines from Washington aren't encouraging. With less than two weeks before the holiday recess, Congress is again playing a game of brinksmanship.

Tom Dodds, the owner of slashBlue, a small IT support, outsourcing and disaster recovery company based in St. Paul, Minn., says that Washington budget gridlock has rattled his customers.

"When the news came out in August about the possible downgrade on the U.S. credit rating, everybody held their breath a little," he said. "So decisions don't get made. Everyone just takes a pause and holds back on spending."

For many small businesses, 2010 was a year of rebuilding. While growth stabilized in the first half of the year and pick up a bit in the second half, many small businesses say the national economy seems to have little momentum heading into the New Year.

"We're just not seeing the long-term strength that we had predicted a year ago," Keith Tuttle, president of Motor Carrier Service, a long-haul trucking company based in Northwood, Ohio says. "We'll have three very good weeks in terms of volume and then we see a week of indecision on the part (of) some shippers."

With the presidential election campaign well under way, small business owners see little prospect of anything changing in the nation's capitol.

"We need fundamental structural reform of the tax code, less regulation, and a more bipartisan approach to big solutions for spending and the deficit," Bob Benham, the owner of Balliets, a high-end women's clothing store in Oklahoma City says. "That's not going to happen in an election year."

New regulations that govern everything from finance to health care reform have added to the uncertainty for small business owners.

"When you bring 30 million new people into the (health care) system, someone has to pay for all that," said Benham says. "We just don't know where we're going. I can only anticipate that it's going to be more expensive rather than less expensive."

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