Small Business

Yesterday’s Democratic Senate caucus meeting – combined with Majority Leader Reid’s push on this issue, combined with President Obama’s leadership, combined with a clear demand by the public for action – has given comprehensive clean energy and climate legislation a major boost as we head towards the 4th of July recess. Clearly, at this point, there’s a better path to 60 votes in the U.S. Senate for comprehensive clean energy and climate legislation than ever before. We are that close to making history, let’s make sure we seize this moment!

 Cross-posted from The Huffington Post

The Weekly Standard ran a cover story this week called, "In Denial: The Meltdown of the Climate Campaign." Despite the cute play on words about who is denying what, the article got it all wrong. Climate change legislation is not dead--not as long as publications like this keep putting it on its cover.

As one experienced senator recently told an NRDC trustee: "I have never seen an important piece of legislation get passed that wasn't declared dead several times before."

Darin Patterson of Springfield's Patterson Auto Group LLC explains to the Springfield Business Journal what he plans to do with his new low-interest loan from the Missouri Small Business Loan Program.

"I am ecstatic," Patterson said. "I'm hoping this $25,000 will not only get me more employees but will also get us through the hump through the winter and get our roots established."

In addition to an approximately 15-car lot, Patterson plans to introduce detailing and paintless dent removal services in October. He has two people on staff, including himself, and hopes to employ six within two years.

So much for the prediction from Peter "Every Dollar Counts" Kinder that these loans couldn't buy much more than "a desk and a computer and a chair." Kinder also said: "I think we might as well go out on High Street and start handing out thousand-dollar bills to passersby,"  

"Health care costs are simply too expensive for small businessess"

That's the key message from a new survey conducted on behalf of the Missouri Foundation for Health by Small Business Majority by Lake Research in May. From Missourinet:

"What we learned confirmed, basically, what we already knew as small business owners and sort of anecdotally," said Small Business Majority CEO John Arensmeyer. "That the high cost of health care is just killing small businesses in Missouri."

Arensmeyer says most of the small businesses surveyed like much of what they are hearing being discussed in Washington, D.C., especially the call for eliminating higher premiums or disqualification for pre-existing conditions.

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There isn't a lot of sympathy at the St. Joseph News-Press for Peter Kinder's concerns that the Governor's bipartisan low-interest loan program is both too generous and too limited to be effective.

Given [Kinder's] array of concerns, we still strongly favor the loan program. Our support is grounded in the real-life experiences of people like Tom Bliss, executive vice president of Mo-Kan Development Inc.

Mr. Bliss explained that small, start-up enterprises needing $5,000 to $10,000 frequently do not have the collateral required for obtaining a bank loan. And yet simply giving away the money does not seem to be necessary. Mr. Bliss points to a similar federal program making loans of $20,000 to $200,000 that has a very low default rate and has been a “tremendous success locally.”

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