Last week, Congressman Vern Buchanan said he’d heard that “nobody is making any money” right now.

According to that NSBA member survey covered in this week’s MEJ, an awful lot of small business owners are struggling so much that they fear for their firm’s survival.

Ever since the capital markets imploded and the current recession became too obvious to ignore, people have been worrying about small businesses.

If small businesses can’t borrow money, they won’t be able to deal with cash flow issues or meet payroll or more forward with expansion plans (yes, Virginia, firm expansions do happen during recessions).

Without all that, they won’t be able to create jobs and lead us out of this recession.

The only problem with that prognosis is that small businesses are already leading us out of this recession. Nobody seems to have noticed because the businesses involved are very small and don't move in the same circles as Vern Buchanan.

They are microbusinesses.

This credit-based recession has been much less painful for microbusinesses than it has been for other firms because microbusiness owners are used to being unable to access capital. We are normally forced to bootstrap for long-term growth in the best of times.

But what about all those jobless people who aren’t spending money?

As dismal as the jobs picture has been for the past 18 months, I remind you that 10% unemployment is still 90% employment. Most people still have jobs and all of them are still spending money. They just aren’t spending quite so much.

Consumer confidence is rising. So are the leading economic indicators. Consumer spending is sputtering but generally on a slightly upward trend. A lot of indicators are “less negative.”

So, while there seems to be a consensus that small businesses are in dire straights these days, the under-the-radar consensus on the street is that microbusinesses are largely doing fine.

I don’t know about you but I’m quite happy to have missed my invitation to that pity party.