Over the weekend, Thomas Friedman expressed frustration at the prospect of more federal bailout money going to GM and Chrysler, writing, "Bailing out losers is not how we got rich as a country, and it is not how we'll get out of this crisis."  Friedman thinks we need to focus on start-ups.

You want to spend $20 billion of taxpayer money creating jobs? Fine. Call up the top 20 venture capital firms in America, which are short of cash today because their partners - university endowments and pension funds - are tapped out, and make them this offer: The U.S. Treasury will give you each up to $1 billion to fund the best venture capital ideas that have come your way. If they go bust, we all lose. If any of them turns out to be the next Microsoft or Intel, taxpayers will give you 20 percent of the investors' upside and keep 80 percent for themselves.

 This talk has Anita Campbell of Small Business Trends nervous.  She says "bailing out venture capitalists is a dumb idea."  Setting aside for a moment that Campbell's statement seems to misrepresent Friedman's idea (he is saying that federal bailout money would be better spent if we gave it to VC firms.  I don't see him arguing that we need to "bail out" those firms), her larger point remains worth exploring.  She points out that most small businesses don't get venture capital.

Look, venture capitalists play a valuable role. But venture capitalists are simply irrelevant when it comes to the vast majority of small businesses and the economic engine they create. And we definitely shouldn't be subsidizing VCs' high investment returns with taxpayer money, especially not my taxes as a small business owner.

Read Anita Campbell's post here. 

Is she right?  Or is there something in Friedman's idea that makes sense for economic growth, and therefore a net gain for small business?  Weigh in.