It’s been said that doing the same thing over and over, and expecting different results, is a sign of insanity.

Congress does that all the time but nobody seems to think lawmakers are uniformly insane — well, except for the cranky, paranoid, political fringe nut-cases, of course.

The issue of federal procurement is a good example.

Now that Congress has taken care of the health insurance issue — at least for the time being — no doubt policy makers will consider themselves free to turn their attention to that other category of employer-provided social safety net: retirement savings. And, according to two reports released last week by the SBA Office of [...]

Congressional Republicans have been indulging in a few schoolyard antics that we parents might use as examples to our children of poor sportsmanship, conduct that undesirable and not to be emulated. For example, thanks to the arcane rules of the Senate, Republicans brought the work of that body to a halt last Wednesday by refusing [...]

Last week, the House Committee on Small Business dusted off one of its perpetual favorites among small business issues when Chairwoman Nydia Velázquez convened a hearing on small businesses in the federal procurement marketplace. As the Chairwoman pointed out in her opening statement, small business owners are saying that their biggest challenge isn’t access to [...]

In stirring up as much fear and loathing as possible, opponents of health care reform are appealing to the basest impulses that still live in the deepest tar pits in their followers’ hearts, impulses that most Americans comfortably believed we put behind us with the election of an African-American President.

The results have not been pretty.

I bring all this up because the results of the NASE survey covered in this week’s microbusiness news demonstrate that not even microbusiness owners (who are generally believed to be smarter than the average bear) are immune to this campaign of misinformation.

So, microbusiness owners, let the current episode of manipulative politics be a lesson to you.

On the eve of the House vote that finally sent sweeping health care reform legislation to President Obama’s desk, the National Association for the Self-Employed (NASE) has released the results of a member survey indicating that lawmakers have been getting it wrong from Day One. For example, while almost eight in ten microbusiness owners (77.6%) [...]

It’s difficult to think back this far but, a couple of years ago, when then-Senator Barack Obama was on the campaign trail, one of the ideas he touted to support small businesses and help the economy was a national network of business incubators. Fast forward a year and a half or so, and there hasn’t [...]

The Senate Judiciary Committee, under the auspices of Chairman Pat Leahy (D-VT), has been working on patent reform legislation for about a year now and, earlier this month, Chairman Leahy announced that a compromise had been reached with Committee Ranking Member Jeff Sessions (R-AL). You might expect that to be big news for microbusinesses, nonemployer [...]

Perspective really is everything. Late last month, Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship Ranking Member Olympia Snowe (R-ME) and Committee Member Mark Pryor (D-AK) were patting themselves and each other on the back for their bipartisan legislative proposal, the Job Impact Analysis Act of 2010 (S. 3024). Their dignified happy dance reflected the times. [...]

Hey, it’s Sunshine Week! Sunshine Week is an initiative spearheaded by journalists nationwide to bring attention to open government and freedom of information. Since Sunshine Week is all about open access to information from and about the government, it is particular appropriate that legislation that will go pretty far in improving your access to that [...]