access 2004
u.s. chamber of commerce small business summit
In what many attendees considered the highlight of the summit, a session titled “What Washington Should Know About Operating a Small Business” used interactive voting technology to poll the audience on key small business issues, and then the participants instantly discussed the results. This event helped fulfill the Chamber’s promise not to conduct a meeting where Chamber officials only spoke to small business members, but where small business members did most of the talking.
Questions posed during the session covered the gamut of small business public policy, from health care to taxes to legal reform. When asked what should top the small business policy agenda, 67% said “reducing rising health care costs.” On health care, 91% said that they offered health benefits to employees. Of those, 72% said that they experienced premium increases of more than 10% this year. Many attendees have had to scale back benefits in order to offer them at all.
To the surprise of many, only 51% of the participants said that taxes are a “barrier to growth,” 39% thought taxes are “reasonable,” and 10% had no opinion. Eighty-two percent want to make the Bush tax cuts permanent, and 72% would be happy to scrap the tax code and start over. There was universal disdain for the death tax. According to one attendee: “No business should have to be sold to pay for death taxes.”
An astounding 45% of participants said that they had been named in a lawsuit, and an overwhelming percentage (93%) maintained that excessive litigation directly harmed their businesses. Participants were bullish on the economy, with 73% believing that it is “headed in the right direction” and the remainder saying that it is “headed in the wrong direction.”
Summit attendees also heard from some of Washington’s most powerful small business policymakers, including Commerce Secretary Don Evans, SBA Administrator Hector Barreto, House Small Business Committee Chairman Don Manzullo, and Rep. Sue Myrick. In his keynote address, Evans touted the administration’s numerous small business tax cuts. “This year there are 25 million small businesses that will get tax relief because of President Bush’s plan,” he said. Evans also highlighted how much the administration values the contributions that small businesses make to the economy. “When the president looks at all of you, he sees the backbone of America’s economy and the best hope for Americans seeking work.”
In a fast-paced session examining the small business policy outlook for the rest of 2004 and beyond, Barreto stressed how the president’s tax and economic policies—combined with record funding for SBA loan programs—have helped small business. He also identified the administration’s future plans, which include “eliminating the estate tax, enacting legal reform, and ratifying an energy policy.”
Rep. Donald Manzullo stressed the need for a “deep economic recovery” not a “quick recovery.” Rep. Sue Myrick outlined the tremendous amount of pro-small business legislation passed in the House—such as legal reform and a national energy strategy—that has become stalled in the Senate. “We’ve done our job on the House side,” she said. “The Senate is not doing anything.”
