Last week, the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship held another of those peculiar hybrid hearings covering more than one topic, aptly named “Progress Report on Recovery Act Implementation and Alternative Sources of Financing.” So, after SBA Administrator Karen Mills (a panel unto herself) testified about the SBA’s progress on implementing the various provisions [...]

The Credit Cardholders Bill of Rights Act (H.R. 627) passed the House more or less painlessly, after the consideration of a scant sixteen amendments or so, at the end of last month. Now, it’s the Senate’s turn. That body is currently considering the Credit CARD Act (S.414), which was offered by Senate Banking Committee Chairman [...]

Earlier this month, the National Association for the Self-Employed (NASE) was working Capitol Hill with a single, simple message: “Dear Congress, Please take it easy on the small business owner.” An excellent opportunity for that sort of thing presented itself when the House Small Business Committee, Subcommittee on Finance and Tax, held its first hearing [...]

It’s time to keep your word, Mr. President, and elevate SBA Administrator Mills to a position in your Cabinet.

You may not think it matters. Possibly, you think we have forgotten or don’t really care. And some of your advisers may even counsel against making small firms loom too largely in your overall economic outlook.

But Chairwoman Landrieu nailed the situation nicely when she said that there will be no recovery without small businesses. I think it’s high time you did something to indicate that you know that, Mr. President.

All of which brings up a fairly obvious notion: every business owner, at a certain point in the life of his or her business, must decide whether to pursue growth or sustainability.

Growth is the way of the 20th Century Rapacious Consumption Economy. In some circles, rumor has it that we are supposed to be trying to leave that stuff behind us, for the sake of our planet and for the sake of our household levels of indebtedness.

Sustainable is the way of the 21st Century Recently Conscientious Economy, the one that says it is possible for us to meet our material needs without rendering our planet uninhabitable and desirable for us each to have ‘enough’ and no more.

This might sound like a peculiar thing to say after all this time but it’s beginning to look like the Senate may finally be ready to get serious about health care reform. As might have been expected, the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions has been holding a series of hearings to examine [...]

It’s only May but I think it’s safe to say that one epithet that no one will be able to apply to the 111th Congress is “Do Nothing.” It’s almost as if the folks at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, having followed the marriage counselor’s advice, suddenly find they can work together again and it [...]

Non-micro small wholesalers suffer decreased survival rates when the dollar appreciates, according to a study released last week by the SBA Office of Advocacy. The study, “Effects of International Competition on Small Wholesale and Retail Trade Firms,” was written by Robert Feinberg with funding from Advocacy. Building on previous work by himself and others, which [...]