The National Association for the Self-Employed (NASE) is getting a little hot under the collar about proposals for health care reform. Or, to be more specific, they are perturbed by the lack of help for the self-employed to be found in those proposals. Although policy makers understand that small business stakeholders are deeply engaged here, [...]

What a difference an Administration makes (with apologies to Dinah Washington). It wasn’t so very long ago that the microenterprise development industry was hanging on like grim death, lobbying desperately to fend off the attempts of the Bush Administration to rid itself of the SBA Microloan program for good. The fortunes of microfinance in the [...]

It is often quite difficult to figure out how the nation’s small businesses are doing at any given moment in time. You can talk to a few small business owners to ask them but that only gets you anecdotal evidence. You might turn to the added formality of the National Federation of Independent Business’s monthly [...]

“You may think you’ve won but your victory won’t matter once I’ve detonated this Smart-but-Evil bomb, a weapon with such destructive power that it will blow up this entire planet!!! Muwhahahahaha!!!”

The evil laugh is required.

Now, you wouldn’t think to see this sort of thing this side of an old episode of Underdog but something very similar is going on this very minute in the national health care reform debate — such as it is.

Many of the small businesses that do not apply for credit because they believe they will be denied would probably qualify for credit approvals, according to the final paper in the research compendium we’ve been reviewing over the last few weeks, entitled Small Business In Focus: Finance, released in late June by the SBA Office [...]

There are certain issues that perpetually perplex the U.S. Congress. Some of them are large, headline-grabbing issues, like access to affordable health care and ending the conflict in Iraq. Others are much smaller but no less vexing. One such issue is the question of classification of independent contractors. You wouldn’t think such a seemingly simple [...]

According to a study released earlier this month from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, credit card debt appears to increase the likelihood of new business failure within its first three years of operation. The study, unexcitingly entitled The Use of Credit Card Debt by New Firms, uses data from the 2004 Panel Study of Entrepreneurial [...]

The Labor Department is hostile to self-employment, largely because it concerns itself with workers who are employees. Employees have certain rights that are protected by the Labor Department. Independent contractors and those self-employed types take work away from employees, when employees ought to have first dibs on it.

Well, after all, it is the Labor Department.

Treasury, and in particular, the IRS, has no such biases. All they care about is that everybody pay their taxes.

In fact, I have come across taxpayer advice on the IRS web site instructing people who accept bribes, commit fraud, and rob people of their property not to forget to pay their taxes. Who knew the IRS was such a tolerant bunch?

I mean … come on! Euthanasia? Rationed care? Puh-leeze!

Setting aside an unimportant little document of which you may have heard, called the U.S. Constitution, I’m wondering what the Democrats have done in living memory that would make these tales in the least bit credible?

Elected Democrats, that is. The left has its very own lunatic fringe, I do recognize that.

My point is this: they may not agree with the current leadership at either end of Pennsylvania Avenue but I wonder why so many people find it easy to believe that the folks in Congress are monsters?

Small firms with available internal funds are more likely to demonstrate either sales growth or employment growth, or both. That is the unremarkable finding from a recently released study from the SBA Office of Advocacy. “How Strong Is The Link Between Internal Finance and Small Firm Growth? Evidence from the Survey of Small Business Finances” [...]