More businesses are closing than starting. Can Congress help turn that around?

Americans are starting fewer businesses, new companies are going out of business more quickly, and the new firms that do get off the ground are creating fewer jobs.

None of that bodes very well for an economy still trying to find its footing.

“America’s entrepreneurs need help,” John Dearie, executive vice president of the Financial Services Forum, a trade organization in Washington, D.C., said during a recent hearing before members of the House Small Business Committee. In terms of the start-up economy, he added, all vital signs “are flashing red alert.”