The House Small Business Committee has a new Chair in Representative Sam Graves (R-MO), a move on the part of the House Republican Conference that is not the least surprising since Graves was Ranking Member of that Committee during the last Congress. Graves is not one of the flashier members of Congress — think of [...]

At a press conference held in Washington last week, Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship Chairwoman Mary Landrieu (D-LA) took the podium to talk about what Congressional Democrats have done for small businesses and to plug their latest efforts in the current jobs bill that is, they say, being held up by Senate Republicans. [...]

It’s kind of odd when you stop to consider it. We keep hearing about how Congressional budget hawks have been waking up and are starting to complain that Uncle Sam is going too far into debt. In fact, that sort of thing is what has supposedly caused Senate Republicans to dig in their heels and [...]

Those forms on Everything-You-Could-Possibly-Imagine.gov all say that somebody reads each and every submission but we have no way of knowing, really.

And even if they do, the odds of those emails being read by somebody who matters, somebody who is in a position to evaluate a new idea on the merits and maybe take it to the President and say, “Excuse me, sir, but here’s something that I don’t believe we’ve considered … ”

… those odds are very slim. Let’s face it: all the evidence suggests that they don’t really want to know what we think. We all know that, even though they would be much happier if we pretended we didn’t.

Meanwhile, everywhere else you look — whether it is at social safety nets or whether it is at a National Broadband Plan or whether it is at the push to increase U.S. exports — there appears to be no place in Obamaland for the sturdy American microbusiness.

In many ways, that really doesn’t matter.

Microbusinesses have managed to grow in number and increasing importance in the U.S. economy without a shred of support from the federal government and I would imagine they will continue to do so.

On the other hand, I’ll confess I’m disappointed.

During his State of the Union address earlier this year, President Obama announced his goal to double U.S. exports within the next five years. It seems a laudable goal for a CEO-in-Chief. The economy has been pretty much in the tank since before Obama took office. The job market is only just starting to show [...]

I suppose it’s possible that all sorts of Americans in different circumstances and different walks of life might have different ways of “celebrating” April 15th — Tax Day — in addition to a dramatic wipe of the brow and a declaration that it’s Miller Time®. On Capitol Hill, where it probably should not be expected [...]

Late last month, the House passed the Small Business and Infrastructure Jobs Tax Act of 2010 (H.R. 4849), which does all sorts of things that are supposed to inspire small business owners to create jobs while simultaneously including enough revenue raisers to avoid falling afoul of those PAYGO rules. For example, this bill attempts to [...]

After all the drama surrounding the down-to-the-wire Senate health care reform bill, which was finally passed on Christmas Eve, 2009, it’s a bit anticlimactic to have to report that President Obama is still having to urge Senate Democrats to ‘finish the job.’ There remain enough differences between the House and Senate versions of the bill [...]

As amazing as it may seem in a Washington that often seems collectively afflicted with ADHD, the Obama Administration spent the entire week last week talking about small businesses. And it’s not even Small Business Week! Evidently, when the President said his renewed focus on job creation would start with small business, he meant it. [...]