Main Street Alliance Leaders Plant Flag for Small Business Values in Washington, DC
In late July, small business owners from all across the country – from Maine to Montana, Louisiana to North Dakota – left their homes and their businesses on a mission: to carry a message about small business values direct from their Main Streets back home all the way to Washington, DC. It was the “America’s Small Business Values at Work” summit.
All in all, a dynamic team of 50 small business owners from 17 different states gathered in DC for the summit on July 22-23. Small business leaders led a packed agenda that reflected the recent expansion of Main Street Alliance and state partners’ issue priorities. While the Main Street Alliance continues to highlight proper implementation of health reform and of the financial regulatory overhaul as top concerns for small businesses, MSA and its state partners were also in DC to bring small business values to bear on a whole host of priorities: job creation and community jobs, clean energy and climate issues, responsible taxes, and comprehensive immigration reform.
In one of the highlights of the summit, Minnesota Senator Al Franken, New Jersey Representative Bill Pascrell, and Health Care for America Now Executive Director Ethan Rome joined MSA small business leaders Kelly Conklin, Inga Haugen and Dr. Odette Cohen for a press conference highlighting one of the key leverage points in the implementation of health reform: ensuring value for premiums by requiring insurance companies to meet new minimum standards for what percentage of premium dollars goes to pay for actual health care costs (as opposed to administration, advertising, lobbying and executive compensation). Inga, a family farmer from Minnesota and founder of her own small business, Farm Girl at Large, put things in perspective: “I don’t sell manure as fresh milk,” she said, and then challenged the health insurance industry to reform its broken business model.
The 17 different state delegations spent the afternoon on July 22 crisscrossing Capitol Hill on their way back and forth between legislative visits with Senators, Representatives, and senior staffers. A senior delegation of MSA leaders also trekked over to 1500 Pennsylvania Avenue for a meeting with staff at the Treasury Department to discuss Treasury’s small business initiatives.
On July 23, small business owners from the Main Street Alliance’s National Advisory Council took turns facilitating sections of a day-long leadership retreat that included a series of presentations and small group discussions aimed at building a strategic vision for continuing to build a powerful voice for small business owners both in their home communities and at the national level. Distinguished presenters included Michael Lipsky from Demos, Margarida Jorge and Ethan Rome from Health Care for America Now, Lisa Donner from Americans for Financial Reform, Jeff Blum from USAction, and Lauren Bazel from the Center for American Progress.
The “America’s Small Business Values at Work” summit embodied what the Main Street Alliance is all about: creating opportunities for small business leaders to speak for themselves on issues that matter to small business owners, their employees, and the communities they serve all across America. In a time when our political discourse has become so easily hijacked by corporate special interests, elevating true small business voices direct from Main Streets and local communities to inform debates over public policy is more important than ever.
MSA Signs Letter Urging Congress to Let High End Tax Cuts Expire
On August 5th, the Main Street Alliance joined over fifty national organizations in signing a letter urging Congress to let the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans expire on schedule at the end of this year. A new coalition called Americans for Responsible Taxes is committed to closing corporate tax loopholes and ensuring that the wealthiest Americans pay their fair share of taxes, promoting economic security for the middle class families who are the bedrock of the small business customer base, and stopping ineffective and irresponsible tax cuts that do little to stimulate job growth or economic recovery.
Click here to read the full letter.
Extending the Bush tax cuts for the highest income brackets would add over $1 trillion more to our national debt, even as budget hawks cry foul over emergency spending to extend unemployment benefits to the more than 8 million Americans still without a paycheck due to the recession. Additionally, the Congressional Budget Office calculates that giving tax cuts and breaks to the wealthy is the least effective method of economic stimulus out of a list of policy options CBO evaluated.
A sampling of the other organizations signing the letter urging Congress to take a responsible stand on taxes includes: the United Church of Christ, Interfaith Worker Justice, Citizens for Tax Justice, the Coalition on Human Needs, the National Organization for Women, and YWCA USA.
MSA Letter in Support of Elizabeth Warren
The Main Street Alliance submitted a letter to the Obama Administration extending its support for Dr. Elizabeth Warren as a candidate to head the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The Bureau is one of the tools created by the recent financial overhaul to police Wall Street and the financial firms that drove the economy into the ground, costing millions of people their jobs and forcing countless small businesses to shutter their doors.
Although small businesses had no part in causing the financial meltdown, they’ve certainly felt the effects — lost business, frozen credit, a dwindling customer base. That’s why small businesses want to see someone who has the courage, strength, and credentials to stand up to Wall Street put in charge of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Dr. Elizabeth Warren is uniquely qualified for this position. Her experience and performance as chair on the TARP Oversight Committee only further enhance her previous credentials. As a candidate who promises to train a tough but fair eye on Wall Street and the next round of financial “innovations” in credit card contracts and the like, Dr. Warren can provide just the combination of experience, fairmindedness, and stability small businesses other credit consumers needed on their side to drive the economic recovery forward.
New poll shows small business owners in Maine, Massachusetts and New Hampshire support clean energy legislation
On July 16, the Main Street Alliance and Small Business Majority released the results of a poll of 319 small business owners in ME, MA and NH indicating strong support for clean energy and climate legislation.
John Naylor, owner of Rosemont Markets based in Portland, ME, spoke on a press conference call about the poll results with representatives from the Main Street Alliance and Public Policy Polling.
Click here to listen to the audio of the press call
Follow the links below for state-by-state poll results:
MAINE: ME poll results memo | ME news release
MASSACHUSETTS: MA poll results memo | MA news release
NEW HAMPSHIRE: NH poll results memo | NH news release
A Shot Across the Bow to Health Insurers: Don’t Try to Pin Rate Increases on Health Reform Law
Tuesday’s New York Times reports that President Obama met with insurance industry executives at the White House on Tuesday to issue a clear warning: don’t try to use the health reform bill “as an opportunity to enact unjustifiable rate increases that don’t boost care and inflate their bottom line.” You can read the full article by Kevin Sack and Sheryl Gay Stolberg here.
The article mentions a survey released Monday by the Kaiser Family Foundation finding premiums paid for health insurance by people purchasing coverage on their own (including self-employed people and small business owners who can’t afford group coverage and have nowhere else to turn besides the individual market) increasing 20 percent over last year’s rates. While 2010 rate increase data are not yet available for the small group market, individual business owners have reported rate increase quotes from their insurers ranging from the 20 percent range to as high as 124 percent.
While the final health reform package didn’t give the federal government authority to reject unjustified rate increases, it did set up a $250 million fund to give grants to states to beef up their own premium review processes. The Main Street Alliance supports a proposal to create a new health insurance rate watchdog to work closely with state regulators, conduct rigorous review of rate increases, and deny or modify them when deemed unjustified – the bill to watch in Congress is called the Health Insurance Rate Authority Act of 2010, co-sponsored by Sen. Dianne Feinstein and Rep. Jan Schakowsky.
Main Street Alliance Joins Small Business Majority on Amici Brief Opposing Lawsuit Against Health Reform in VA Court
Today, the Main Street Alliance joined Small Business Majority in filing a friend of the court brief in U.S. district court in Virginia. The brief registers small business opposition to the lawsuit filed by the state Attorney General in Virginia attempting to repeal key provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Virginia MSA leader Tammy Rostov joined SBM CEO John Arensmeyer and attorney Joseph Sandler on a press call to discuss the brief.
Click here to download audio from the call
Click here to read a copy of the brief
In its statement of interest in the case, the Main Street Alliance wrote:
“The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (“PPACA”) takes critical steps to make health care work better for small businesses, including: ending insurance discrimination, maximizing bargaining power by allowing small businesses to band together to shop for coverage, cutting the ‘hidden tax’ associated with uncompensated care, making coverage more affordable with tax credits and premium subsidies, and containing rising health costs. A mechanism to ensure that everyone has health coverage and everyone contributes their fair share toward costs is essential to realizing these improvements. Since the elements of the reform package are closely intertwined, where the effectiveness of each is dependent on proper execution of others, the success of health reform overall in ensuring access to quality, affordable health care for small businesses hinges on full implementation of PPACA’s comprehensive package of reforms.”
Main Street Alliance Sends Letter to Financial Reform Conferees
On Thursday, the Main Street Alliance sent a letter to members of the Senate and House of Representatives who are participating in conference for financial regulatory reform calling on Congress to resist efforts to weaken the legislation. Main Street Alliance leaders asked for 3 things: an independent consumer protection agency, a ban on proprietary trading, and sensible regulations on exorbitant debit card swipe fees. Small businesses have seen their customer base diminish due to layoffs directly caused by financial products designed to fail, a consumer protection agency will protect against these abuses. Credit is tighter than ever for small businesses and other commercial borrowers, proprietary trading or banks gambling with deposits for profit, instead of lending the money back to the community is at the heart of the credit crunch. Lastly, debit and credit card companies charge massive swipe fees and include anti-competitive clauses restricting the type of payment small businesses may accept.
SMALL BUSINESS OWNERS TAKE ON NFIB FOR PLAYING POLITICS, JOINING FRIVOLOUS AG LAWSUIT AGAINST HEALTH REFORM
PRESS RELEASE
For Immediate Release:
May 14, 2010
Contact:
Sam Blair, (603) 831-1835
SMALL BUSINESS OWNERS TAKE ON NFIB FOR PLAYING POLITICS, JOINING FRIVOLOUS AG LAWSUIT AGAINST HEALTH REFORM
Business owners say NFIB doesn’t represent real small business owners on health care
* Business owners available for comment *
Washington, DC – This morning, the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) announced it would join the lawsuit of state Attorneys General challenging health reform, a lawsuit widely considered to be politically motivated. Small business leaders from the Main Street Alliance’s National Advisory Council responded to NFIB’s announcement:
David Borris, owner of Hel’s Kitchen Catering in Northbrook, IL:
“As a small business owner, I am appalled by this ‘politics over policy’ decision by the NFIB. How dare they claim to represent the best interests of small businesses. Ninety percent of their members are businesses with less than 25 employees, like mine, and health care reform is win-win for us. It makes you wonder, who are they carrying water for? Has the NFIB received backing from the health insurance industry like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has?
“NFIB should be investing its resources to educate its members about the benefits of reform and advocating for further improvements, like Representative Jan Schakowsky and Senator Diane Feinstein’s proposal to establish an authority to watchdog insurance rate increases. That’s what small businesses need now.
“What would the NFIB have us do, take a giant step backwards and go back to the same system that left small businesses at the mercy of the insurance industry for so many years? There are many ways to make health reform better for all of us – going back in time is not one of them.”
Jeannie Boisineau, owner of JB Casting in Richmond, VA:
“As a small business owner, I am disappointed that the NFIB, which claims to champion the cause of small businesses, would choose to support the frivolous and misguided lawsuit against the new health care law. Obviously, the NFIB has chosen to align itself not with true small business owners, but with the insurance companies that have made it impossible for so many of us to provide insurance to our employees. The NFIB does not represent my interests, nor the interests and wishes of any other small business owner I know. This is sorely disappointing.”
Kelly Conklin, owner of Foley-Waite Associates in Bloomfield, NJ:
“The NFIB claims to represent small business yet time and again takes public positions that advance big corporate interests at our expense. NFIB’s move to join state AGs’ frivolous and politically-motivated lawsuit is just the latest example. NFIB is engaging in partisan politics at the expense of small businesses. That’s painfully obvious, and it undermines their credibility to speak for small businesses.
“NFIB could work within the small business community to illuminate the benefits of health care reform, and work to ensure that implementation of reform includes input from the small business community. Instead, they’re just grandstanding, and wasting valuable opportunities to represent and serve small businesses. For small business owners who are serious about making health care work for us and our employees, maybe now’s the time to cancel that NFIB membership, because they’re not working for us.”
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Looking for Info About New Small Business Tax Credits? Check Your Mail!
If you’re a small business owner, you might be receiving a postcard any day now from the IRS with some welcome news: you may qualify for the new small business tax credit enacted as part of the final health reform package. Businesses with fewer than 25 employees and average wages under $50,000 that pay for at least half of employees’ health insurance premiums may qualify for a credit of up to 35 percent of the business’s contribution this year.
Here’s what the postcard looks like:
The IRS started mailing over four million of these cards to small business owners earlier this week.
IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman said, “We want to make sure small employers across the nation realize that – effective this tax year – they may be eligible for a valuable new tax credit. Our postcard mailing – which is targeted at small employers – is intended to get the attention of small employers and encourage them to find out more. We urge every small employer to take advantage of this credit if they qualify.”
Even if you didn’t receive a postcard in the mail, you may still qualify for the new credits. You can find out on this special section of the IRS website.