Where Is the Government?

Small businesses, waiting on help from a divided Congress, are facing the apocalypse. And they are wondering whether anything the government does will be enough to help them through.

Dafna Kory is the founder of INNA jam, a beloved Bay Area small business that makes jams, shrubs, and pickles from produce grown within 150 miles of its Emeryville kitchen. The business is all about sustainability, Kory told me, both environmental and economic. She buys produce from local organic farmers and preserves it, to help people enjoy peak-ripe seasonal foods year-round. And she hasn’t expanded beyond her little kitchen and five-person staff because she hasn’t wanted to take on that kind of risk.

“People don’t even consider the idea that there’s a size, a good size, that’s