Dino Rossi often says that for small businesses to start hiring again, banks need to lend more. It’s the message he’s heard across the state and just today at a meeting with business leaders in Tacoma, he said.

Yet he opposes a bill aimed at restarting the flow of credit to small businesses. That’s because he doesn’t think government should be pulling the strings on the lending, he said.

He wasn’t the only one to oppose the measure. Republicans prevented it from moving forward in the Senate today. The legislation would have set up a $30 billion fund to invest in small, community banks.

Rossi calls it a “baby TARP.” “It’s another bailout,” he said. The federal government shouldn’t direct the economy, he said.

Small-business groups like the National Small Business Association and National Federation of Independent Businesses, which often side with Republicans, have endorsed the bill (tepidly in the NFIB’s case).

“They like the bill because they’ve been handed such a pile of rubbish with the first bill,” the new Wall Street regulations, Rossi said.

Murray’s campaign fired off a press release today saying Republicans:

may use small business owners as political props at campaign events, but when the chips were down, they did not lift a finger to actually help those business owners create jobs in our state.

Rossi said if Congress wants to help small businesses, it should be keeping taxes low and regulations fair. He said the Tacoma business leaders he met with today are paralyzed by uncertainty about what the government will do next.