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, [...]

As lawmakers debate various elements of a health care reform bill, two thirds of microbusiness owners say they are watching closely, with about 60% feeling they have, minimally, a moderate understanding of the issues, according to a survey released last week by the National Association for the Self-Employed (NASE). The survey was conducted among microbusiness [...]

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 [...]

Barack Obama may have sailed into the White House on a rousing chorus of The Times They Are A-Changin’, but one thing that hasn’t changed a bit is that the tax gap is a headache for microbusinesses that is not going away. In fact, President Obama has been in office for less than 100 days [...]

Speaking of the SBA’s entrepreneurial development programs and federal performance measures, there are clearly two problems where one intersects the other. The first and most obvious problem is that “bodies through the door” — that is, the number of users of the program — tells you nothing about whether the program successfully does what it [...]

Right now, America’s microbusinesses are feeling as pessimistic about the economy as everybody else, according to the results of a survey released by the National Association for the Self-Employed (NASE) last week. More than 70% of those surveyed indicated that the slow economy has had a significant or moderate impact on their business. In addition, [...]

While there is a certain amount of hyperventilating among microbusiness advocates because millions of them may be subject to ruinous mortgage payment resets in the near future, most microbusiness owners have other problems in connection with the current state of the economy. That was the principle finding of yet another member survey, entitled “Housing and [...]

Microbusiness owners name the slowing economy by a wide margin as their top concern for 2009, according to a member survey released by the National Association for the Self-Employed last week. Now, there’s a shocker, huh? Coming in at a distant second place was the cost of health care, followed by tax fairness and complexity, [...]