By John Tozzi, Business Week
Are banks lending more to small businesses? It's hard to say. What's called "small business lending" cuts across several business lines at most banks, from real estate to credit cards, and few lenders report separate figures for small businesses. Still, late last year, under pressure from the White House to increase credit to Main Street, several of the… Read more »
From the Wall Street Journal Opinion Section; By Jim Owens, chairman and CEO of Caterpillar, Inc.
The long-term health of the U.S. economy is at risk. There are signs of recovery from the worst recession since the Great Depression. But not enough.
We need a renewed, centrist political agenda to support economic policies that will enhance our global competitiveness. America cannot… Read more »
By Christina Lusby, KTEN Online
It's a bill some claim could take away private property rights of land owners. A word change in the 1972 Clean Water Act could grant Federal access to small bodies of water such as small streams and creeks.
The Clean Water Act has helped keep drinking water in the United States clean for more than 30 years, but now with the proposed change to the word… Read more »
By Sudeep Reddy, Wall Street Journal
President Barack Obama's goal of doubling U.S. exports over the next five years will be difficult to meet, business leaders and economists say, because of the lack of momentum on demolishing trade barriers and the shift by more American companies toward producing overseas.
U.S. exporters want Washington to put more pressure on trading partners to… Read more »
By Brent Engel, Hannibal Courier-Post
President Barack Obama likely will get an earful about cap-and-trade during his visit to the Tri-States. Cap-and-trade is a system of regulating pollution. The federal government would limit the amount of emissions that companies, manufacturers and utilities could produce. The permits could be traded among licensees.
Opponents call it government… Read more »
By Carol Sakowitz, Charlotte Sun Weekly and Herald
Area small business leaders aired their concerns regarding the current difficulty in obtaining bank loans to U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan, R-Sarasota, Monday at a field hearing conducted at the University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee Campus near the county line.
The hearing was chaired by U.S. Rep. Kurt Schrader, D-Ore., chairman of… Read more »
By Ken Newton, St. Joseph News-Press
When Congressman Sam Graves hears about fiscal responsibility in Washington, his attitude is: Don’t hold your breath.
Trouble is, he says, businesses are holding their breath waiting to see what new taxes might affect them.
“A lot of businesses don’t want to add jobs because they don’t know what’s going to happen around the corner,” the lawmaker… Read more »
By Grace-Marie Turner, New York Post
Small businesses have the highest hopes for health reform, but they'd be big losers under the bills Congress is debating.
For more than 20 years, small-business owners have listed health costs as their No. 1 concern. But leading "reform" bills would make things worse -- ballooning expenses for firms that now offer insurance and slamming companies… Read more »
Congress: It didn't take long to run into an "uh-oh" moment when reading the House's "health care for all Americans" bill. Right there on Page 16 is a provision making individual private medical insurance illegal.
When we first saw the paragraph Tuesday, just after the 1,018-page document was released, we thought we surely must be misreading it. So we sought help from the House Ways… Read more »
The 1,018-page initiative contains several components pushed by liberal Democrats that were long expected to be part of House legislation, but which face considerable opposition in the Senate. Most notably, the House bill creates a new public health-insurance plan aimed at individuals and small businesses that otherwise can't get affordable coverage.
The House measure would bar insurance… Read more »
