Republicans in the U.S. House decide to be either Santa or the Grinch this holiday season when they vote later today on whether to agree with the Senate’s bipartisan plan to extend payroll tax cuts and unemployment benefits for two months. This is a big deal for small businesses. If working Americans see less money […]
Santa or Grinch and small business lending craters Read More »
My friend Lew Prince finally found a bank willing to give him a $175,000 line of credit. He had talked to six other banks since the summer of 2010 all of which turned him down because he wouldn’t put up his house for collateral, something they would never ask of a big business. I tell
Corporate America’s wealth Read More »
As we celebrate Thanksgiving with family and friends tomorrow, our thoughts should be with Americans who are struggling…and there are more than you think. According to a report released yesterday by Wider Opportunities for Women (WOW) 45% of all American households are struggling financially. Not just struggling, unable to cover housing, food, healthcare and more.
Thanksgiving prayer not enough Read More »
Efforts to shut down Occupy encampments across the country might be having some limited success, but the issues that drive the 99% movement continue to be exposed. You want to know why small businesses are struggling? Read The New York Times story below. The New York TimesNovember 16, 2011 Middle-Class Areas Shrink as Income Gap
Shrinking middle-class, shrinking customer demand Read More »
All of us have heard the anecdotal stories of how somebody’s brother-in-law is unemployed but yet won’t try to get a job because he’s making more money collecting an unemployment check. Some politicians even use these stories to explain the high unemployment numbers. “If they weren’t getting paid,” they say, “they’d be taking all these
No more “brother-in-law” excuse Read More »
If your feet felt cold this morning, it’s because Hell has frozen over. Last evening the U.S. House passed overwhelmingly (407-17) a piece of President Obama’s American Jobs Act. While the Senate Republicans yesterday blocked the transportation part of the jobs bill, House Republicans and Democrats solidly supported changing Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) regulations
Hope for bipartisanship and small business? Read More »
There are 280 corporations on the Fortune 500 list that are a lot more fortunate than the rest. According to a just released study by Citizens for Tax Justice and the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy these 280 corporations paid an average effective tax rate in 2009 and 2010 of just 17.3%. The official
The most fortunate of the Fortune 500 Read More »
Yesterday the Senate failed to move forward the President’s plan to invest $35 billion in the states to help keep teachers, law enforcement personnel and firefighters from being fired due to budget shortfalls. The 60 votes were needed to keep the measure alive but all 50 of the GOP Senators voted against it. So what
The Hill’s Congress Blog 10/19/11 By Thomas Alston, solar outreach and policy coordinator for U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona There is a segment of the U.S. economy that employs more than 100,000 people – and during the past year, employment in that segment grew by more than 6.8 percent.Compare that to the 0.7 percent
Focus on the Solyndra default distracts from the benefits of solar Read More »
With all due respect to my friend SC Treasury Curtis Loftis who is the state chairman of the Mitt Romney campaign, the GOP Presidential candidate has the wrong business approach to the housing and foreclosure crisis. In a recent interview with the Las Vegas Review Journal, Romney said that the solution to both the housing
Romney’s bad business idea Read More »
