I would argue that you don't start outright by forming your own business. You gain experience and stability through working for other agencies and companies, in

I would argue that you don't start outright by forming your own business. You gain experience and stability through working for other agencies and companies, in this time you work on your own plans, save your own financing and ease into your own business at a period when self-sufficiency blooms from your and your staffs productivity. I'm currently at this phase, I wouldn't quit my job and request state handouts because there's no saying that my idea for a business would work and it would be forcing other tax payers to accept the risk. So in other words, the inherent risks which come with entrepreneurship would be placed on the tax payer. This would also mean people would take more careless business risks. This is similar to why bank bailout made banks less accountable, I think there needs to be a greater separation between state and economy ultimately. Government subsidies also distort the true market value of services, for example in the U.S. if you invest in a government lobbied program, you can see in the region of 200%+ profit returns, whereas the most wealthiest returns for non-state backed industries are more like 7-10% profit returns. This leads to bubbles, inflation and would automatically mean a higher tax burden for tax payers. You're definitely correct that something needs to happen to make it easier for start-ups, I would argue though perhaps a tax relief for start-ups once they are up and running, or a reduction in regulation to make it easier to get going. I'm thinking of starting my own business here in the UK and the government forms alone are putting me off and this is before I get slammed with small business rates etc!