Not surprisingly, many small business owners are bottom-line people. When it comes to government actions, they prefer to put aside the flowery rhetoric and fuzzy political promises for bottom-line public policies. That is, are these steps being taken by government going to be good for the economy and business or not? In New Jersey, decades […]
A recent front-page story in USA Today should have grabbed the attention of anyone concerned about economic growth and job creation. The headline? “Weakest startups since early ’90s.” USA Today reported that, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the 12-month period ending in March 2011 experienced the slowest new business startups over 12 months […]
After a three-judge federal panel heard arguments by the National Federation of Independent Business and 26 states that President Barack Obama’s health reform law violates the Constitution, one major newspaper columnist wrote he’d almost “bet the house” the lawsuit will wind up in the U.S. Supreme Court. We at NFIB are encouraged, too, because our […]
For a decade, manufacturing in America weakened and 6 million small business manufacturing jobs were lost, decreasing by 33 percent from 1997 to 2009, according to a recent story in the Wall Street Journal. This last year, however, marks a change. American manufacturers are ramping up and adding needed jobs to the economy. U.S. manufacturers […]
There’s a lot of talk in our nation’s capital these days about putting aside politics and coming together to reduce the federal deficit. To this economist, that sounds good. Unfortunately, some of the people saying its time to drop the politics are either disingenuous or simply don’t understand the economics at work. As a quick […]
For more than four decades, the U.S. Small Business Administration has acknowledged the extraordinary contributions small businesses make to the economy of our nation by designating a special week in their honor. Proclaimed by President Barack Obama, May 16 to 20 is National Small Business Week in Washington, D.C., where entrepreneurs from across the nation […]
President Barack Obama is working on an executive order that would require any company bidding on federal government work to list all political contributions by the firm, officers and directors, along with donations made to private groups engaged in speech related to, for example, politics and policy. This mandate would cover contributions and donations made […]
During the recession and subsequent recovery, the general move on taxes in the states has been in a distinctly negative direction. That is, faced with budget deficits, states have reacted by raising taxes. This past July, for example, the National Conference of State Legislatures reported: “The impact of the severe economic recession that began in […]
The General Assembly’s redistricting committee recently released proposed maps outlining Colorado’s new congressional boundaries. The maps offered by the Democrats and Republican members of the committee are as different as night and day. The Republican maps start from the fact Colorado has the same number of congressional districts in 2011 as we did in 2001. […]
Long-range budget projections are always packed with uncertainty. Changes in the underlying economic assumptions, eventual economic realities and shifts in policy making give such estimates limited value. Some value can be found, however, in terms of determining the general direction current budget policies are pointed and where they could take federal spending, revenues, deficits and […]