Tag Archive for 'Government'

Which presidential candidate is best for small business?

Published
by
davonna
on 1:09 pm
in Government and Politics
. 0 Comments

As a leading voice for the small business sector, one of the factors I track and report on is public policy. In my advocacy role, I vociferously support those issues that benefit small business and pugnaciously oppose those that don’t, regardless of political party origin.

Before every presidential race since 2000, I’ve reconciled the policies of the two major party candidates with the top concerns that keep small business owners up at night. Here are those comparisons for the five small business issues that currently find their way to the top of every survey.

“We need more business”
Admittedly, this is the default lament of almost every small business. But in the past seven years, business leaders have reported that the greatest factor in their investment/risk-taking/hiring calculus has been an unprecedented high level of uncertainty. When asked about the source, the answer is invariably anti-business policies and rhetoric from Washington. Uncertainty manufacturing examples include, but are not limited to: direct expensing limits under Section 179 of the tax code; the Obamacare roll-out roller coaster; policies skewed in favor of unions; and now, the upcoming DOL overtime exemption rules.

Hillary Clinton 2008 might have been better for the economy than Barack Obama, but not Hillary 2016. She’s been pulled too far to the left - read: anti-business - to do anything that would promote business risk-taking.

In almost every way, Donald Trump will likely be more to the left than a true-blue fiscal conservative. But he does have an advantage regarding the economy in that he knows what it takes to create a job. Clinton doesn’t.

With their Big Lobbies, Big Business will do okay in the economy regardless of who is president, because crony capitalism will thrive under either Trump or Clinton. The problem for small businesses is we’re not organized and we’re no one’s crony.

On the economy, I’ve got to go with the one who’s made a payroll.

“Our taxes are too high”
Essentially by definition, the most troubling hit to the precious working capital of a profitable small business is taxes. Hillary Clinton’s vow to raise taxes will hurt small businesses. Donald Trump said he plans to reduce taxes. I don’t know if either one will be successful in their pledge, but I have to go with the one whose plan includes a downward arrow. Some say tax cuts will increase the deficit. But that belies the fact that the U.S. government does not have a revenue problem - it has a spending problem.

“Health care costs are prohibitive”
As I and many others predicted, Obamacare has become a nightmare for small businesses, and by extension, their employees. In a recent online poll I took of small business owners, two-thirds reported that under Obamacare their health care insurance expense has gone up significantly, if not prohibitively, as have the deductible level for employees. And the new enrollment period is bringing new pain.

Clinton thinks Obamacare didn’t go far enough, while Trump has pledged to “repeal and replace.” I don’t know if Donald can deliver a health care cost silver bullet, but we do know that Obamacare isn’t the answer, or what Hillary has in mind.

“Stop the regulatory assault”
According to the Competitive Enterprise Institute, regulatory compliance - aka stealth tax - is beginning to take more off the bottom line of small businesses than their income tax bill. One perfect example is the new DOL overtime exemption rules, which in addition to increasing payroll without increasing productivity, will become a work schedule, record-keeping nightmare for millions of small businesses.

Again, I’m going to have to put my faith in correcting this with the person who knows what’s involved in making and administering a payroll.

“We need more qualified employees”
You may be surprised to learn that in many surveys, this is the number one concern of small businesses. In fact, economists have reported on my radio program that there are millions of good-paying jobs going unfilled due to a lack of qualified candidates. Sadly, in the past 20 years, I haven’t heard any president, or candidate, address this problem, including Trump and Clinton. It doesn’t say much about a government that won’t help small employers find qualified workers, while actively putting regulations between them and the employees they have. But I have to give a slight nod to Trump, because he has actually conducted business in the current human resources environment.

Finally
I know of no other election where both presidential candidates of the two major parties are as deficient in exemplifying the best America has to offer. One of the markers of a true leader is someone followers want to look up to. Who in either party can truly say they could look up to either candidate? Another leadership trait, especially in a president, is someone whom we believe we can trust. Essentially by definition, neither a pathological liar nor a pathological narcissist fits the profile of a trusted person.

In 1831, Alexis de Tocqueville said of the American political system: “In a democracy, the people get the government they deserve.” Whatever we did to deserve this, please join me in asking for forgiveness. Because I’m truly sorry. How about you?

#GODHELPUS

Write this on a rock … America has bigger problems than who will be the next president. But on balance, I think Donald Trump will be the best one for small businesses.

What you should know about the Internet before we give away ICANN

Published
by
Jim Blasingame
on 4:44 pm
in Future thinking, Government and Politics
. 0 Comments

Allow me to tell you a story of innovation bordering on the miraculous, scientific stewardship driven by professionalism and shared values, and global leadership that qualifies as agape. And the possibility that all three could be headed for an intersection where the best intentions of good people could be in jeopardy.

Approximately 23 years ago you and I were given access to the Internet, an invention that a generation earlier would have been considered science fiction. Most experts define the headwaters of this seminal invention to be the digital protocol work of Bob Kahn and Vint Cert, both researchers for a division of the U. S. government. Subsequent to its commercialization, these two and a few other geniuses created a number of digital innovations that enabled the Internet and established it as an unprecedented resource.

First question: How did the rest of the world get the Internet?

Since it was initially considered part of national defense, all of this mad scientist stuff was funded by the government’s National Science Foundation and its various contractors. As it became evident that the Internet had commercial applications, the U.S. began sharing with the world what we knew and what we had. Nothing was withheld, enabling the Internet to rise in every corner of the world.

Second question: Who operates the Internet?

Think of it like a private toll road system. The U.S. government allowed private investment to create interconnected computer networks into a “backbone” system that, for a “toll,” delivers our digital business around the world using the protocols created by Kahn and Cerf, and later applications like browsers. Similarly, more private investment built out the infrastructure to transfer digital info from the backbone to last-mile users, like you and me, at the speed of light.

Third question: Who’s in charge of Internet governance?

Who runs the Internet is more complicated to explain, but it’s important because of that intersection thing mentioned earlier. In fact, the U.S. government allowed Kahn, Cerf and others to create governing bodies like the Internet Society, the Internet Engineering Task Force, the Internet Architectural Board, and the World Wide Web Consortium, as organizations overseeing governance, access and standards for the global proliferation of the Internet. The Internet Society, which is the incorporated parent of two of these organizations, has 80,000 stakeholders and 110 chapters in 140 countries. That’s a lot of shared governance with one goal – a free and open Internet, sans politics.

The reason I’m telling you about the origin and governance of the Internet, is because a very important, last piece of U.S. direct influence of an Internet possession is about to be lost. The 18-year contract between the U.S. government and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) expires on September 30, 2016. When you create a new website it actually has two addresses: 1) a name, like abcsupply.com, for humans to remember and manage; and 2) a number value, like 207.111.167.145, for the way computers work. If you type either the words or numbers assigned to your website into a browser, the same page will be delivered.

According to NetChoice.org Executive Director, Steve DelBianco, in 2014 the Obama administration instructed ICANN to create, and transfer itself to, a “global, multi-stakeholder community.” On my radio program recently, DelBianco reported that this new body has been created and will take over on October 1. As part of the transitioning team, he says the new ICANN will be not unlike the other bodies mentioned earlier who’ve been governing the Internet for decades. That’s the good news.

Last question: If the Internet had been the property of Russia, China, or even France, would access and control of such a powerful resource have been so freely shared?

I think not. Consequently, in spite of my confidence in DelBianco and his colleagues, I’ve been very outspoken in the past three years against this plan for ICANN. I’m concerned about the loss of the last thread of direct influence by the U.S. government. I’m worried about what will happen if when we reach that intersection in the future, global, multi-stakeholder organizations, who’ve governed so dispassionately – without ideology – for decades, somehow become influenced or overridden by bad actor states, or possibly worse, the United Nations. The UN has a long history of coveting control of the Internet.

The United States is the most benevolent broker on the planet and has never let geopolitics influence Internet access or governance. With so many experts projecting that cyber-attacks pose a more imminent threat to our sovereignty than nuclear weapons, I fear the best intentioned Internet governors and investors may ultimately be no match for someone named Putin, Jinping, Khamenei, Jong-un, or their proxies.

Write this on a rock … Pray the world doesn’t regret America’s divesting of this last vestige of U.S. Internet ownership and control.

It’s Time to Tell The Truth About Minimum Wage

Published
by
Jim Blasingame
on 9:13 am
in Economy: National and Global, Entrepreneurship and The Age of the Customer
. 0 Comments

Before any product or service is offered to customers, the price must be determined. The foundational element of this calculus are costs, which includes labor. In a true free-market economy, all elements of cost are determined by the marketplace. But in the U.S., we don’t have a true free-market economy because of mandates and subsidies imposed by the federal government, one of which is the minimum wage.

Alas, raising the minimum wage is being proposed again.

When the government is involved, politics, not reason, is the motivation, which isn’t so bad when the issue is politics. But politics has no place in what businesses pay for their cost factors, especially labor, often the largest cost factor.

When proposed, the national minimum wage was never some great egalitarian blow for the working man. It became law in 1938 as a cynical, protectionist move by the Congressional delegations of the northern textile industry – primarily Massachusetts –against their southern counterparts, whose lower, market-based labor costs made them more competitive.

Today the minimum wage has become a political wedge issue of the cruelest type, because research shows each increase actually hurts the segment it purports to help, especially younger, entry-level workers, like teenagers and minorities. The primary reason is that for decades employers have controlled the impact of an increase by reducing entry-level positions using various organizational steps. But today, technological advances have given all employers an increased ability to forgo entry-level hires in favor of low-maintenance, non-taxed innovative devices and/or software.

The results of two recent online polls reveal how these options manifest on Main Street. When we asked about their attitude toward the minimum wage, 82% of small businesses said the government should not be setting wage rates. But when asked how a minimum wage increase would impact their business, 76% said “Not at all.” The reason for the lack of concern by the sector that doesn’t like the minimum wage is likely because: a) they’re already paying more than minimum wage; b) they have legal ways around it to the disadvantage of the unskilled, increasingly unemployed worker.

An important goal of most businesses is growth, but adding payroll expense to achieve it is no longer a given. And so far, business owners are in charge of the decision to add workers or use other means to achieve growth. Nevertheless, increasing minimum wage does cause problems: an arbitrary increase distorts all wages as it becomes the new base from which other workers measure wage progress. If a small business adjusts all wages up in response, expenses rise. But if it doesn’t, morale declines. Furthermore, unions use minimum wage as a contract lever to exact from employers automatic, across the board increases for all organized workers.

In the marketplace, any increase in price must be justified by value delivered. But this logic is lost when labor costs rise by government fiat without adding one extra unit of productivity.

Write this on a rock … Let’s call the minimum wage what it is: A political lie that actually hurts poor and unskilled workers.

Jim Blasingame is author of the award-winning book, The Age of the Customer: Prepare for the Moment of Relevance.

RESULTS: How does the federal government influence your small business?

Published
by
Jim Blasingame
on 8:30 am
in Uncategorized
. 0 Comments

The Question:

In general, how do you regard the influence of the federal government on your business?

0% - The government helps more than it hurts.
84% - The government hurts more than it helps.
13% - There’s a balance between positive and negative.
3% - I’m not aware of good or bad government influence.

Jim’s Comments:

It’s long been an article of faith among Main Street business owners that the less government in their lives the better. So last week I wanted to see if that maxim is still in force. Not one respondent thought the balance was in favor of the government, but more than eight of ten allowed the government was more negative than positive. A small group said the relationship was balanced, and the tiny number at the bottom must represent start-ups.

The large group could be guilty of not giving the government credit for those things we take for granted: There is peace in our land, we have good highways and other conveyances, plus there are many services the government provides that it’s uniquely positioned to do. But it’s likely that our numbers skew against the government for at least three reasons: 1) unlike the marketplace, government typically is annoyingly illogical, 2) we don’t like it when the government tells us how to run our business, and 3) we don’t like the income redistribution ideology and policies coming from government for the past half century.

American would be so much better if the government would adopt more small business approaches to operating an organization and solving problems.

Obama’s Internet words don’t match his actions

Published
by
Jim Blasingame
on 11:49 am
in Entrepreneurship, Government, Intellectual property, Online strategy and Online technologies
. 0 Comments

“You will know them by their fruits.” This ancient wisdom is from the author of the Gospel of Matthew.

Sixteen centuries later, in his book “Will and Doom,” the Rev. Gershom Bulkeley, paraphrased Matthew with, “Actions are more significant than words.”

In the 21st century this timeless maxim continues to serve as we hear President Obama say, “I intend to protect a free and open Internet.”

In the past I’ve reported my concerns about the future of the Internet under the Obama administration. If you believe the Internet is one of mankind’s greatest inventions, if you like its current low barrier to entry for personal and professional benefit, if you’re responsible for the future of a business, then you should share my concerns.

CC Photo via Pixabay

CC Photo via Pixabay

1.  President Obama treats the Internet as a political and diplomatic bargaining tool. After the U.S. government was embarrassed by Edward Snowden’s theft of secrets, the President announced intentions to relinquish U.S. control of Internet governance to a “global, multi-stakeholder community,” even though there was time left on the contract with ICANN (For more on this, see my 3/23/14 column, “If you like your Internet, you may not be able to keep it”).

It’s no secret the U.N., a global, multi-stakeholder community, covets control of a ubiquitous asset through which it can exert more influence and levy a global use tax. Nothing fits that profile better than the Internet. If Obama’s governance plan for the Internet comes to pass, his words, “protect a free and open Internet … so innovators and entrepreneurs can reshape the world,” won’t match his actions.

2.  The commercial Internet has flourished for more than 20 years thanks to a very lightly regulated environment. By definition such broadband laissez-faire is unacceptable to President Obama, who wants to impose his own version of net neutrality.

Consequently, the President’s FCC chairman and straw man, Tom Wheeler, has announced plans for an “Open Internet Order” to reclassify broadband access as a “telecom service” under Title II of the Communications Act. This means the Internet would become a government regulated – and ultimately taxed – public utility. Turning the Internet into a utility would be like performing a heart transplant on someone who just needs a baby aspirin. (For more, see my 11/16/14 column “Why you should care about Net Neutrality”).

Today the Internet is not without governance and usage issues, but none that can’t be handled by marketplace participants large and small through contract, creativity and competition.

Write this on a rock … If Obama’s plans for the Internet come to pass, his words, “I intend to protect a free and open Internet,” will not match his actions.

RESULTS: What do you think of executive action?

Published
by
Jim Blasingame
on 7:30 am
in Government, Politics and Presidential policies
. 0 Comments

The Question:  
President Obama has indicated he is prepared to take executive action on immigration reform without Congress. What do you think?

0% - The president has the authority to do this and should
51% - Only Congress is authorized to change immigration laws
15% - I don’t care as long as we start resolving the immigration problem
34% - Here they go again. God help us
Jim’s Comments:
As you can see, none of our small business audience thinks President Obama has the Constitutional authority to change immigration laws. Over half specifically say presidents are not supposed to make laws, and the rest have basically thrown up their hands in exasperation.

With President Obama in the White House and a GOP-led Congress, the next two years are going to be rocky in Washington. But with this step Obama has just taken on immigration, it looks like he’s declared his intention to be combative and not in the mood to compromise during his final two years in office. #GodHelpUs


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