I talked to a bunch of business experts before the legislature went into special session Nov. 30 to get a sense of what lawmakers could do to reignite Colorado’s economy when this pandemic passes.

The truth is: Nobody knows because nobody can predict the future, because the future won’t be like the past. Right now it’s all a lot of small businesses, families and hospitals can do just to get by, juggling a health crisis with the monthly bills.

A lifeline was the mission of the special session Gov. Jared Polis called to pass a $280 million relief bill, while Congress dawdles on a federal stimulus package.

What comes next, however, has to come from a head for business, not a mind filled with politics.

Politicians have partisan lines they won’t cross. Businesses have bottom lines they hope not to. Hitting bottom, however, is unaffiliated.

Legislators need to respect that they don’t know everything.

“I think government, sometimes, thinks they know how to speak business, but over the last few months it’s been proven they don’t know how every business operates,” said my friend Loren Furman, the senior vice president for state and federal relations at the Colorado Chamber of Commerce.

Businesses pick up the tab, though.

“We’ve spent months explaining to companies and associations and workers how to file for all these new restrictions that are changing on a weekly basis,” Loren said. “Some of them who are following all the rules are still getting punished if they can’t keep up, and they’re unlikely to survive.”

Karen Moldovan, policy director for the socially conscious chamber Good Business Colorado, told me everybody is learning as they go, including politicians.

Access to capital, even small grants, is the No. 1 thing lawmakers need to have in mind, she and Loren both told me. 

“I don’t think there’s an appetite among the businesses that have managed to survive to take on additional debt right now, even though the state has been working on some low-interest loans,” Karen said during a three-way call with her boss, Debra Brown. “Businesses have a lot of trepidations when they just don’t know what the future looks like.”

It’s hard to bank on anything built around politics and good faith right now, in other words.

That means politicians need to have an eye toward the long-term common good of our country on both sides of the cash register, for a change.

President-elect Joe Biden should do two things, if nothing else: end the hostility between the far left and far right and heal the fractures between his party and business.

He isn’t off to a great start on either.

“President-elect Biden states he wants to provide assistance to small business owners in response to the pandemic as a top priority, something more than half of NFIB members say is necessary,” Tony Gagliardi, Colorado state director for the National Federation of Independent Business, told me in an email. “He has stated he does not want to increase taxes on small businesses; however, wanting to phase out the Small Business Deduction and limit other tax benefits of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 is concerning.

“His positions on labor issues, such as creating new [Occupational Safety and Health Administration] enforcement standards, significantly increasing the federal minimum wage, expanding federal paid leave mandates, and disrupting existing employment law … are unsettling to NFIB membership. And he has not mentioned the importance of liability protection for main street business from frivolous COVID-19 lawsuits.”

The NFIB is alarmed by recent research by Yelp that predicts 60% of closed businesses won’t reopen.

“That should alarm everyone,” Tony said. “If everyone buys online from a big retailer, we’ve sealed the fate of small businesses everywhere, the small businesses that gave most of us our first job, the small businesses that employ our friends, family and neighbors, the small businesses that will take a chance on employing someone who couldn’t get past the lobby of a large corporation. A lot is at stake. Will we rise to the challenge?”

I hope so.

Polis is scalding on the political hot seat over how he’s taken care of business. Normally I’d pull up a seat to watch.

Nobody enjoys second-guessing politicians and public servants more than me. It’s who I am. It’s what I do.

What’s before us now, though, is beyond my wildest hunches. I’m not smart enough to figure out how to simultaneously save lives and save businesses, and you’re probably not, either. 

Any insinuation Polis doesn’t care about the pain small businesses are going through, however, is wrong. If you don’t like him, it’s a good place to aim, because it hits him where he lives. 

Polis earned his fortune by building businesses, so he knows what that takes.

The best story about him I ever heard is how he held onto his Halloween candy as a kid, sold it at school later on when demand was higher and turned a nifty profit. A young capitalist myself, I respect the cut of his boyhood jib.

Polis has signed executive orders that have helped and hurt businesses, for sure, but it’s not fair to question his values.

I wish I could find the logic or ire to do that, but I have enough to worry about.