The ObamaCare Mandate Nightmare Comes To Small Businesses

The headline in the AP story says it all: "Crunch time at small businesses as health care demands loom." "Loom" is the right word. As the story explains, starting next year, the dreaded ObamaCare employer mandate kicks in for businesses with between 50 and 99 employees. That means they will all have to offer their full-time workers — which means anyone clocking in more than 30 hours a week — government-approved health benefits, or face a steep fine.


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The Real Agenda: Dems are anti-small business

At the beginning of this Session the majority party laid out their agenda, and we have now reached the point where they are finishing their objectives.


In February they passed the low carbon fuel standards as a payback to the environmental groups and re-wrote class action common law as a payback to the trial lawyers. We are now seeing the passage of legislation designed as a payback to the unions.


This week in the Senate we passed paid sick leave (SB 454) and the House passed the Treasurer’s retirement plan (HB 2960).


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Pending Patent Legislation Stifles The Next Steve Jobs

By Rep. Dana Rhorabacher (R-CA)
Steve Jobs started Apple in his garage in Silicon Valley. Jeff Bezos founded Amazon in an apartment garage outside Seattle. Stanford students Sergey Brin and Larry Page got Google off the ground in a garage they rented south of San Francisco. ✧ But a Senate bill supported by these companies and a handful of other deep-pocketed multinational corporations threatens to close the garage doors of small inventors forever. If enacted, it will stifle American innovation and destroy untold numbers of future jobs. ✧ I am speaking of S.1720, the so-called "Patent Transparency and Improvements Act of 2013." Its backers claim it will reduce frivolous patent lawsuits. In reality, it was designed to rid big high-tech companies of what they fear the most: little guys with great ideas. Read More at Investor's Business Daily

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Uh Oh, Obamacare Math Sinks In for Small Businesses

Even as you finish with this year's taxes, if you're a small-business owner experts say it's time to look ahead to 2014, when the tax implications of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) begin to kick in.

"Just now, things are really sinking in that there is this employer responsibility," said Amanda Austin, of the National Federation of Independent Business.

Under ACA, often called Obamacare, employers with 50 or more full-time workers face a mandate to provide insurance. It's known formally as shared responsibility.

"You're going to need somebody to do a thorough review of the impact on your business," Austin said, because the new rules are complex.

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EPA Declares Hay a Pollutant

(NaturalNews) The assault against American industry and individual livelihood continues -- and no, it is not coming from Al-Qaeda or other foreign terrorists. A recent report from R-CALF USA, an advocacy group for American cattle producers, says the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has declared harmless cattle hay a "pollutant," which is part of the agency's agenda to squelch family-scale cattle ranches in favor of corporately-owned, mega-sized feedlot operations. Read more at Natural News... Read More......

IBD: Don't Diss Small Biz

INVESTORS BUSINESS DAILY, 08/25/2010 - Employment: We try not to comment on opinions expressed on our own op-ed page, but Wednesday's On The Left column asserting that small businesses are not major job-creators mustn't go unanswered. ∴ 'The myth of small business as the engine of job creation is largely that — a myth," Ruth Marcus wrote in support of higher taxes on those earning more than $250,000 a year. "Small businesses create new jobs when they start and take off; they also lose jobs when they crash and burn." ∴ With all due respect to Marcus, who is syndicated through the Washington Post Writers Group, we're in deeper trouble than we thought if this is what passes for conventional wisdom in our nation's capital. ∴ It's bad enough that President Obama, and even the U.S. Small Business Administration, low-ball the number of new jobs created by small businesses. Both put it at around two-thirds, when the real number, we believe, is around 85%. Read more at IBD... Read More......

Heritage: The Estate Tax Debate

HERITAGE FOUNDATION, 12/29/2009 - THE DEATH TAX, Burden on American Business. "In the coming weeks, Congress will once again take up debate on the dreaded estate tax (also known as the "death tax"). The death tax expires for one year, beginning on January 1, 2010, before coming back in full force on January 1, 2011." Read more and watch video... Read More......

House Republicans Press Obama on Jobs Creation

WALL STREET JOURNAL, 10/7/2009 by John D. McKinnon - House Republicans sent a letter to President Barack Obama today, pushing the administration to seek more business tax breaks as a way to boost the number of new jobs. Read story and see letter at WSJ... Read More......