• ANTI-family- Does not allow parents to pass their hard work and wealth on to their children
• ANTI-farm- Farms are especially vulnerable because they hold vast amounts of land which are subject to the estate tax as they are passed from generation to generation
• ANTI-small business- Hurts small businesses that don’t enjoy the same tax shelters and benefits as large corporations

Small business owners and family farmers have large investments in infrastructure and many don’t have the large capital assets they need to pay the tax, and many times are forced to sell the business just to meet their financial obligations. 

Our small businesses are struggling.  They are struggling to keep their doors open, their employees paid and access to capital flowing.  They don’t need any more taxes – not now and not when they die.   What do you think?

The three main components include: take further steps to provide small businesses with access to credit by supporting community bank lending through the Financial Stability Plan; seek legislation to increase maximum SBA loan sizes to allow more businesses to access the credit they need; and convening a Treasury-SBA Small Business Lending Conference to work with regulators, lenders and Congress to ensure credit is available to small business.  Do we really need more conversations on the issue?  Let’s get something done.

Access to credit is critical for many of our small businesses – as credit has tightened over the last year, many of our small businesses have felt the pinch.  But, if we have learned anything from Bailout Mania which has swept over Washington, DC, spreading around federal dollars and increasing government loans will do very little to actually stimulate our economy.  Instead we need policies that will have a positive, long-term impact on businesses and allow them to get more access to capital, reduce their overall costs and allow them to invest more in their employees and their business.  We need less government involvement, not more.

We have been arguing for a reduction (or elimination) of the payroll tax; allowing small businesses to cross state lines to purchase more affordable health insurance for their employees; elimination of the Alternative Minimum tax; and reducing federal mandates that cost time and money.

Long-term, free market solutions will do more to get our economy going and keep it going, than more federal handouts.  What do you think?

• Recognizes the importance of balancing work and family to job productivity and healthy families;
• Recognizes that an important job characteristic is a work schedule that allows employees to spend time with families;
• Supports the goals and ideals of `National Work and Family Month’, and urges public officials, employers, employees, and the general public to work together to achieve more balance between work and family; and
• Requests that the President issue a proclamation calling upon the people of the United States to observe `National Work and Family Month’ with appropriate ceremonies and activities.

Nearly everyone understands that our work force is dramatically different than it was decades ago.  The findings included in the House Resolution also make the point that “85 percent of United States wage and salaried workers have immediate, day-to-day family responsibilities outside their jobs and job flexibility allows parents to be more involved in their children’s lives.”

Unfortunately House Resolutions have little teeth – they are good talking points and certainly help to bring attention to important issues.  But Congress needs to take this resolution one step further and actually support and pass policies that back up these ideas, without imposing new mandates on our businesses.

For one, we need more flexible work arrangements – as the Resolution suggests.  Many families struggle to balance work and family, making sure they have enough time off to care for a sick child or attend a soccer game.  We need to give private sector hourly employees the option to take time off in lieu of overtime wages, a benefit that our federal government employees have enjoyed for three decades. 

Working families, men and women, will continue to re-shape and re-define our workforce.  We need to make sure that our laws can keep up with the changes.  What do you think?

This year has produced some compelling numbers in financial performance:

• 31% of companies have grown and 21% are stable and have neutral performance. 
• 54% have made their business environmental friendly.
• 35% are interested in making their business environmental friendly.

These women members of WPO say their greatest threats to the bottom line  are economic conditions, customer retention, competition, and human resources.  Fifty five percent plan to hire additional employees in 2010 and 53% have kept employee salaries the same with 15% increasing employee salaries.

At a time when unemployment is headed toward 10% in this country (this rate hasn’t been this high since the ‘80’s), women owned businesses continue to grow.  Have we heard about this new survey in the mainstream media?  Are people talking about this success?  Can we find strength and motivation in these numbers?  Yes, we can!  This is the free market at work.

Membership in WPO requires a member to have $2 million in gross annual sales or $1 million for service-based business.  WPO members collectively generate $14.5 billion in annual revenue and represent about 22,000 years of collective business experience.  The membership comprises 1,400 accomplished women entrepreneurs at the multi-million dollar level who aim to increase their business success.  Women now drive the world economy.  Globally, they control about $20 trillion in annual consumer spending, and that figure could climb as high as $28 trillion in the next five years. 

What say you about this ray of sunshine?

October 3^rd marked the one-year anniversary of the largest government bailout in U.S. history.  The passage of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) gave our government (and taxpayers) a majority ownership stake in most of our financial services companies.  This is one anniversary we shouldn’t be excited to celebrate.

In the year since the TARP was launched, things have gone from bad to worse.  In the last nine months we have watched as the federal government took over General Motors; passed a “stimulus” bill that did little to stimulate small business or our economy; transformed itself into a used car salesman with the Cash for Clunkers program; and it is now working around the clock to take over our health care system.

As small business owners and entrepreneurs, we know that innovation, hard work, ingenuity and capital investment are key components to a healthy economy.  There isn’t much the federal government can do except keep taxes low and resist the temptation to add new mandates.  Unfortunately, that hasn’t happened much this year.

With small business representing 99.7 percent of all U.S. employer firms, legislators need to move beyond more mandates and regulations and look for ways that really help our small businesses.

Let’s take a look at the health care debate. The legislation advancing in Congress would require all Americans to get insurance—through an employer, a government program or by buying it themselves.     The more people learn about the health care reform proposals, the more they don’t like them. 

I have heard from small business owners across the country that what they are hearing about current legislation will do little to help them provide access to health care but does a lot to penalize them for not providing coverage.

There were nearly 500 amendments lined up for the “Baucus” health care bill (the bill that Senator Baucus has introduced in the Senate and will likely be the vehicle for any reform).  It is clear there are a lot of people who don’t like the bill in its present form.  And, there is enough opposition to a “public” or government option that it was voted down in Committee last week.

Health care reform legislation will be debated on the Senate floor during most of October.  All indications are that another effort will be made to re-visit the public option as well as many other ideas – some good, some bad. 

Still absent from the debate over health care are some common sense, free market solutions that will incentivize employers to offer coverage instead of imposing new surcharges on employers.  Instead of taxing employers why don’t we let them cross state lines to purchase health care for their employees?  Why won’t Congress allow people to carry their health insurance from job to job or keep it if they lose their job?  And, why aren’t we debating the need to expand Health Savings Accounts?  Can you answer any of these questions?  Talk to me………

Terry Neese

Distinguished Fellow

National Center for Policy Analysis

The House Financial Services Committee continues to delay the date when it will consider landmark legislation to create a powerful new regulator of financial products.  Conservative Democrats now realize these “reforms” could limit the capital made available to small business owners and reduce the number of financial products provided by our local banks.

A group of House Democrats are working on an alternative plan that would have state and federal regulators work together in a consumer financial protection council instead of creating a Consumer Financial Protection Agency.  Before considering this approach, however, we should seek more details.   Unfortunately, we have seen similar tactics before: First, a large new federal agency is proposed. Second, a “compromise” is proposed that includes the same command and control policies, but uses a different mechanism to accomplish the goals. 

We can all agree that some changes need to be made to the financial services industry to avoid the problems of the past.  But, a new government run program is not the answer and will likely do more to hurt consumers than help them.

In his speech the President welcomed ideas from all sides of the debate.  Well here are a few:

• Support health care portability so that people can carry their insurance from job to job or have access to insurance when they are between jobs.  Allow small businesses to purchase individually owned health insurance with pretax dollars;
• Oppose the bill developed by the House of Representatives that would increase taxes on our small businesses to pay for health care and impose a stiff penalty on those who don’t offer health care to their employees; 
• Oppose the Senate’s attempts to place new restrictions on Health Savings Accounts (HSAs). 
• Support allowing businesses to cross state lines to purchase health care for their employees which will increase access and make health care more affordable.

It is going to take more than just a good speech to produce health care reform legislation that preserves consumer choice and access to quality, affordable health care.  Congress and the President need to re-think their approach and produce free market alternatives. 

All across the country, thousands of people turned out in August at town hall meetings and other events to express their opposition to the health care reform bills moving through Congress.  Those who turned out to express their opposition were people from across the political spectrum.  Small business owners concerned about mandates, seniors concerned about the level of care they would receive under a government run program and people from the disabilities community concerned about limiting their access.

It is clear that those pushing for a government run health care system, or public option, are out of step with what people want out of health care reform.  Moderate Democrats, many who expressed support for a public option earlier this year, are now taking a second look at the House health care bill that will raise taxes and impose a surtax on our small businesses.  Even the President has started to realize he has a very difficult sales job ahead of him and will speak before a joint session of Congress on Wednesday night. 

What is happening shouldn't surprise any of us.  We all agree that more needs to be done to reign in health care costs and improve the system.  But a government run system that is paid for by taxing individuals and small businesses is not the answer. 

Congress needs to seriously re-think its approach on health care.  They need to be more open to ideas that make sense like allowing businesses to cross state lines to purchase health insurance for their employees, consider making health care portable so people can carry it from job to job and look for ways to reduce costs rather than impose new taxes.

It is clear that most small businesses are struggling to keep their doors open during the current economic downturn.  And what are our policy makers in Washington, DC doing?  Looking at adding new mandates and costly new taxes on our small businesses – at a time when they can least afford it.

That shouldn't surprise any of us who own or a run a small business.   The reach of the federal government has continued to grow over the last decade, and it doesn't seem to be slowing down.

In fact, the biggest debates taking place in Washington, DC this summer are all centered around expanding government regulations on business and industry: 

• Congress's health care proposal is focused on mandating health care coverage for businesses of all shapes and sizes and paying for it with new taxes on employers and employees;

• Congress continues to debate legislation that would expand the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 (FMLA) from companies that employ 50 or more workers to cover businesses with as few as 25 employees;  and

• Congressional Democrats have introduced legislation that would mandate employers to give workers seven paid sick days a year.  There are over 100 co-sponsors on the legislation and they have already had a hearing on the issue.

At the NCPA's Family Policy Center, we believe government should avoid imposing costly mandates on our small businesses, especially at a time when they can least afford it.  It is time for policy makers to find creative solutions to our problems instead of always resorting to creating new regulations.

Unfortunately some of the people that will take the biggest hit are working families and small business owners.

Just a few of the CBO's recommendations:

• Increase the individual income tax rates.
• Eliminate tax subsidies for child care.
• Eliminate or limit eligibility for the child tax credit.
• Require self-employed and employees to pay the same amounts in payroll taxes.

At a time when we should be providing more opportunities for working families, removing the tax credit for child care and raising individual income tax rates is not the answer.

For the first time in our history women now outnumber men in the workforce.   You see it everywhere you look in today's workplace.  It is clear that today's workforce isn't what it used to be – especially when it comes to working families.  In 1950 less than 12 percent of mothers with children under age 6 were in the labor force.  Today, more than 60 percent of them work outside the home.

For decades millions of women have successfully balanced work and family – many because they have to, some because they desire the challenges and rewards of a career outside the home.  In 1955 only 27 percent of mothers in the workforce had kids under the age of 18, today that number is over 70 percent. 

Given the important impact women are having in the workforce, our policies need to encourage, not discourage, women to enter and remain in the workplace.  Removing tax credits for child care is not the answer.  Our policies should focus on giving working families more flexibility and opportunities, not higher taxes, more mandates or new regulations.  

We need more flexible work arrangements.  Working parents are struggling to balance competing demands from care-giving responsibilities and their careers.  Let's offer private sector employees the option to take time off in lieu of overtime pay, a unique perk that government employees have enjoyed for 30 years.    

Working parents, especially women, are often forced to make difficult choices about their careers. Oftentimes this choice comes down to taking a full-time position with benefits and a 9 to 5 straightjacket schedule or taking a more flexible part-time position. For this reason, many primary caregivers go without the benefits provided by full-time positions.

If a parent needs a flexible schedule and comp time is not yet an option, the employee should be able to trade taxable wages for workplace benefits like health or retirement benefits. Our tax code currently makes this difficult.

And, if we get rid of the child care tax credit that is going to make it even more difficult for families to afford child care which will further discourage women from working outside the home.

At the National Center for Policy Analysis we believe strongly in getting our fiscal house in order and balancing the federal budget.  But it should be done by cutting wasteful government spending and not increasing taxes on those who make our economy work.  Our policies need to make it easier for working families and small business owners – the proposals outlined by the CBO do little to achieve that goal.