Friends: This week, the House Small Business Committee held a hearing with Kenneth Feinberg, Administrator of the $20 billion BP Deepwater Horizon Disaster Victim Compensation Fund.  For small business owners who have seen customers disappear in the wake of the spill, time truly is of the essence when it comes to getting the capital they need to keep their business afloat.  Although Mr.… Read more »

By; USA Today/Bloomberg News The director who'll disperse $20 billion to victims of BP's oil spill warned Wednesday that companies hurt because tourists have stayed away from the Gulf region may not be eligible for reimbursement. Kenneth Feinberg, whom President Obama appointed to handle claims, told the House Small Business Committee in Washington that determining whether to pay… Read more »

Friends: This week marked the three month anniversary of the controversial new health care law.  This law is expected to raise health insurance premiums, create new hurdles for employers, and hike taxes for business owners. Small business owners nationwide are particularly worried about the 1099 reporting requirement in the new law.  This mandate will require every business to file a 1099… Read more »

Dear Friends: This week, the House considered legislation (H.R. 5297) to create a $30 billion fund for smaller financial institutions to encourage small business lending.  Although the issue of access to capital for small businesses is critical, this legislation does not include any requirements that banks actually use the money to lend to small businesses.  I opposed the bill because it… Read more »

Washington, D.C., June 11th - Friends: The economic crisis that began in 2008 has highlighted the importance of improving regulation of our financial markets.  The House and Senate have both passed versions of financial regulatory reform legislation.  Yesterday, bipartisan Members of the House and Senate met to begin working out a compromise bill that reconciles the two pieces of… Read more »

By Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar; Associated Press Over and over in the health care debate, President Barack Obama said people who like their current coverage would be able to keep it. But an early draft of an administration regulation estimates that many employers will be forced to make changes to their health plans under the new law. In just three years, a majority of workers—51… Read more »

Friends: While the House Small Business Committee was celebrating hardworking entrepreneurs for National Small Business Week, Congressional leaders in Washington continued to ignore one of their most basic responsibilities: passing a budget for Fiscal Year 2011. Instead, the House Majority spent the week before Memorial Day recess fighting to push through a tax extenders bill that adds… Read more »

Wall Street Journal President Obama and Democrats on Capitol Hill are publicly fretting about the dangers of spending and debt, which can mean only one thing: Another big spending "stimulus" bill is in the works. And sure enough, the House plans to vote this week on $190 billion in new spending, $134 billion of which it won't even pretend to pay for. Sander Levin, the new Ways and… Read more »

By Jay Heflin; The Hill A study by the National Center for Policy Analysis shows that tax credits in the new healthcare law could negatively impact small-business hiring decisions. The new law provides a 50 percent tax credit to companies offering health coverage that have fewer than 10 workers who, on average, earn $25,000 a year. The tax credit is reduced as more employees are added… Read more »

By Robert Pear; New York Times About one-third of employers subject to major requirements of the new health care law may face tax penalties because they offer health insurance that could be considered unaffordable to some employees, a new study says. The study, by Mercer, one of the nation’s largest employee benefit consulting concerns, is based on a survey of nearly 3,000 employers.… Read more »