Small Biz Panel Considers Further Stimulus
Aug 4th, 2008 | By Dawn R. Rivers | Category: Politics & PolicyLest anyone forget that this is an election year, and not just for the highest office in the land, Congressional Democrats have continued to ignore President Bush and investigate what sorts of things they might want to include in a second economic stimulus package. For example, late last month, the House Small Business Committee held a hearing to look at what was accomplished with that first stimulus package and what they might want to include, specifically targeting small businesses, in a second one. At least, that is what they said the hearing was supposed to be about.
In fact, both witnesses and panel members gently disagreed along more or less partisan lines on the relative merits of tax-based stimulus versus budget-based stimulus (as well as ANWR, offshore drilling and a few other semi-relevant issues). That is, should Congress enact more tax cuts to stimulate the economy or should they spend more of their limited money instead? From the microbusiness perspective, the best suggestions were additional infrastructure spending (which could benefit microbusiness contractors) and a payroll tax holiday (particularly nifty for the self-employed). Will these, or any other of the witnesses’ suggestions make it into a final additional stimulus bill? As usual, only time will tell.
