Click to Print  The Small Picture  How does the federal deficit
affect your business? June 1, 2003  Although the national
deficit often seems like a topic solely of interest to academics
and policymakers, in reality, it has a significant impact on
small businesses. After decades of deficits, the federal
government had balanced its budget by 2000, leading many
businesspeople to assume the deficit was banished.  But as the
foreign capital flowing into the United States has fallen, and
the administration's economic stimulus plans slash taxes, the
deficit has mushroomed. According to Robert E. Scott, an
economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington, DC,
think tank, as the deficit rises, it forces the value of the
dollar down and could lead to a spike in U.S. interest rates. As
the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a nonpartisan
research organization in Washington, DC, has shown, "higher
interest rates would raise the cost of borrowing for small
businesses, making it harder for them to [buy] capit