A new proposal that may provide an interesting new twist on a standard economic development practice, the Rural and Small Town Telework Tax Credit Act of 2009 (H.R. 3627), was introduced by freshman Congressman Thomas Periello (D-VA) late last month. The bill does pretty much just what it says in its refreshingly straightforward title. It [...]

The National Association for the Self-Employed (NASE) hosted two teleconferences last week to instruct reporters on what the self-employed can expect in a post health-care reform world and the picture was not necessarily pretty. According to the NASE’s Kristie Arslan, executive director of the organization’s legislative office, there are several matters in the health care [...]

Last week, the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship held yet another hearing on the subject of small businesses and health care reform. This latest in the multi-year series is perhaps most readily distinguished by the determination of both Congressional Democrats and the Obama Administration to get this done, as close to right now [...]

During the Maryland event where the President made his Big Announcement, he said, “This administration is going to stand behind small businesses. You are our highest priority because we are confident that when you are succeeding, America succeeds.”

Are you feeling all warm and fuzzy yet?

I hate to have to burst your bubble, Mr. President, but, so far as I can tell, we only have your word for it that we are your highest priority. By any measure, whether it is time and attention, money and investment, even your failure to redeem your campaign promise to raise the SBA Administrator to Cabinet-level status, we have no evidence that we are any sort of priority to your Administration.

Suddenly, lawmakers were taking a second look at Microloan.

Not that they haven’t always been willing to look at it. It is thanks to their consistent support that President George W. Bush was unable to get rid of it, even though he tried for three years or so.

But, now that President Obama has demonstrated that he is willing to seriously fund the program, and now that lawmakers have seen they way Microloan Intermediaries were able to pick up some of the slack when the major SBA 7(a) lenders had a collective hangover, some people are starting to talk about increasing the loan cap and expanding the program.

And I will confess to you that it bothers me.

As you may recall, the Tax and Finance Subcommittee of the House Small Business Committee reported out a package of several bills which, combined, would reauthorize and tweak the SBA’s small business access to capital programs. In the next step in that process, the full Committee heard witness testimony about what various segments of the [...]

As much as I enjoy myth-busting, there is one bit of Congressional lore that I would have a difficult time refuting: tax-writing Congressional committees under Democrats are not friendly to small businesses. House Small Business Committee Chairwoman Nydia Velázquez (D-NY) has openly said that the Ways and Means Committee was not particularly friendly to small [...]

As you know, I don’t normally provide an unfettered platform for politicians like this but I thought this op-ed from Chairwoman Landrieu (which originally appeared in the Wall Street Journal) was timely, since she will convene a hearing on health care reform and small businesses later this week. This is another instance in which terminology [...]

Small businesses will need to sell to the federal government because the federal government buys more of everything than everybody. In order to expand their capacity to sell to the federal government, small businesses need to borrow money.

Then they’ll create a mess of jobs, which will get all those unemployed people off our backs. And you wonder why we love small businesses!

But will they? The prediction that this will be another jobless recovery is still with us and, if that’s the case, then policy makers seem to be barking up a whole forest full of the wrong tree.

Oversight hearings, which fell out of fashion during most of the Bush Administration, came roaring back when Democrats took over Congress in 2006. In fact, there were those who thought said Democrats would use said oversight hearings to exact their revenge against Republicans for nameless partisan crimes and misdemeanors. That didn’t happen, of course. Mr. [...]