U.S. Chamber of Commerce: Small Business News Archive

Small Business News
Small Business News Archive

For more information on Small Business News, contact Giovanni Coratolo, U.S. Chamber Director of Small Business Policy.

The Spirit of Enterprise
U.S. Chamber Small Business News
August 4, Volume 1, Issue 10

U.S. Chamber of Commerce launches new technology committee.

The U.S. Chamber is poised to launch its newly structured technology committee. Under the staff leadership of Jon Sherk, the U.S. Chamber’s recently hired Director of Technology Policy, the committee will address many of today’s cutting edge policy issues that have resulted from breakthroughs in science and technology.

According to Sherk, they intend to cover new ground in the formation of policy that could have lasting effects on future business trends. The committee will initially oversee five subcommittees: Intellectual Property, Internet & Information, New Technologies, Technology Finance & Risk Management, and Telecommunications & Infrastructure.

The New Technologies subcommittee will review issues such as the regulation of biotechnology, genetics, nanotechnology, emerging technologies, and the commercial exploitation of these technologies. Deliberation of the far-reaching effects of the recent mapping of the human genome and its applications to business could in itself dominate many meetings and spur a wide range of debate.

Sherk, who has an extensive legal background and a vast knowledge of emerging technologies, will report directly to Bill Kovacs, Vice President of Environment & Regulatory Affairs. Mr. Edward B. Dinan, Bell Atlantic - Maine, will serve as the first Chairman of the committee.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is committed to being the leader for business, especially small business, as we venture into the 21^st century.

Repeal of gift and estate tax top priority in Bush acceptance speech.

In a rousing acceptance speech by presidential hopeful George W. Bush, repeal of the gift and estate tax topped the list of tax priorities. The repeal of the death tax is viewed as the crown jewel of small business tax reform and the U.S. Chamber has led the fight for its repeal on Capitol Hill. A bill to provide full repeal (H.R. 8) has passed the U.S. House and Senate and faces a veto by President Clinton in September.

The following is an excerpt from Bush’s Thursday night speech:

"Another test of leadership is tax relief… The surplus is not the government’s money. The surplus is the people’s money.

I will use this moment of opportunity to bring common sense and fairness to the tax code, and I will act on principle.

On principle: Every family, every farmer and small businessperson, should be free to pass on their life’s work to those they love. So we will abolish the death tax."

The U.S. Chamber supports a tax code that allows small business to invest more of their money in the growth and continuation of their business and not the growth of big government.

The following is an excerpt from the Republican Party Platform Relating to small business.

"Small Business: Where Prosperity Starts

Small businesses are the underlying essence of our economy. Small businesses create most of the new jobs and keep this country a land of opportunity. They have been the primary engines of economic advance by American women, whose dynamic entry into small business in recent years has accounted for much of the nation’s growth. Small businesses generate more than half the gross domestic product. Their willingness to give people a chance, and their ability to train individuals new to the work force, made welfare reform the success that it is. They deserve far better treatment from government than they have received. We will provide it through many of the initiatives explained elsewhere in this platform: lower tax rates, ending the death tax, cutting through red tape, legal and product liability reform, and the aggressive expansion of overseas markets for their goods and services.

We will end the harassment of small businesses by federal agencies. In the case of OSHA, we will withdraw its proposed ergonomics standard, ban its bureaucracy from the homes of telecommuting workers, and change the agency from an adversary to a partner for safer productivity. We will halt the IRS discrimination against independent contractors and, in order to guard against unwise regulation, will include the agency in the current procedures of the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act.

Providing health insurance is a major challenge for small business owners. Almost 60 percent of uninsured workers are either employed by small business or are self-employed. That is compelling reason to immediately allow 100 percent deductibility of health insurance premiums and let small businesses to band together, across State lines, to purchase insurance through association health plans."

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce will encourage all candidates to give the highest priority to the interests and issues of small businesses.

Postal Service proposes assigning an email address to every physical address.

According to Rick Merritt, Executive Director of PostalWatch, the U.S. Postal Service plans to assign an e-mail address to every residential street address in the country. The agency claims that the program is "strictly voluntary" and only people who "opt-in" would receive marketing (spam) messages.

Is this and effort by the Postal Service to lay the foundation to regulate Internet commerce? What privacy concerns should we have? Will having a legal residential email address bind you in the future as to the receipt of legal notices over the Internet? If the Postal Services intentions prove valid, these and many other questions will have to be answered.

"The Postal Service is working at a feverish pace to project its dwindling monopoly powers onto the Internet," Merritt stated. "They already own your physical address and now they want to own your email address."

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce will vigorously defend the rights of small entrepreneurial businesses to flourish in the new economy.

Clinton push for state action on paid parental leave failing.

This week, the Washington Post reported that the major effort by President Clinton to encourage the states to use unemployment compensation (UC) funds for parental leave is about to fail in every state legislature considering bills to implement the Labor Department's regulation permitting the use of UC funds for this purpose. Fifteen states considered bills this year to implement the regulation and use UC funds to provide as much as 12 weeks of leave for working parents of newborns or adopted children. But, none of these bills is likely to be enacted because of strong business opposition and the fear that the unemployment compensation system could run dry in a future recession.

On June 26, 2000, The U.S. Chamber of Commerce filed suit against the Department of Labor (DOL) over the regulations allowing states to tap unemployment funds to pay workers with jobs for time off to take a voluntary leave of absence. The DOL has issued final regulations that could seriously impinge on the financial stability of the state unemployment insurance (UI) reserves. Since the unemployment insurance fund is paid for by employers to provide a safety net for unemployed workers, any use of the funds to subsidize voluntary family leave could increase the future likelihood of inadequate funding during a business downturn, requiring increased employer contributions to maintain solvency.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is arguing that this proposal runs counter to the intent of Congress when it established a voluntary, unpaid leave of absence program, "The Family and Medical Leave Act," for employees to take care of a new or adopted child. The DOL is now attempting to circumvent through backdoor regulation what Congress expressly legislated as unpaid leave.

This proposal will have a disproportional impact on small businesses.

Congress passed "The Family and Medical Leave Act" exempting small businesses with 50 or fewer employee’s because of the onerous burden this act could have on small entities. But contributions to the UI fund by small employers will be used to subsidize the leave of employees of larger companies. This regulation will have a potentially large negative impact on small business.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce will tenaciously fight unfair burdensome regulations on behalf of small businesses.



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