Free Republic

— A refusal by the Athens City Council to rezone property for a private Internet sales club may lead to a lawsuit. Club owner Jay Spencer had previously asked the Athens Planning Commission to rezone property at 1310 West Elm St., from agricultural to B-2, or business district. The commission voted 6-1 on April 19 to deny the request. On Monday night, Spencer was at the council meeting to request the property be rezoned. Spencer’s attorney, Eddie Alley, said surrounding properties do not conform to agricultural land use because the AT&T service center, county school bus garage and the Athens-Limestone...

A new report released today by the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), the nation’s largest small business advocacy group whose membership consists of 350,000 small business owners nationwide, provides further evidence that the Democrats’ health care law is adding higher costs, new taxes and increased deficits. The key findings from the report provide a stark contrast to the promises of lower costs that were repeated over and over again by the President and other supporters of the Democrats’ health care law.In reality: 75 percent of small businesses that offer health insurance do not believe the law will slow the...

So says Kathleen Sebelius in defending the ObamaCare mandate on small businesses of 50 or more employees. CNS News asked the question of whether the mandate might not keep small business owners from hiring that 50th employee as a means to avoid paying either government fines or health insurance policies. Au contraire, says Sebelius — businesses are actually looking forward to being forced into paying more overhead: “I hear, frankly, just the opposite from small business owners … where they say the way that they retain and recruit the best possible employees is with a benefit package that is solid;...

WASHINGTON—The U.S. labor market could stay sluggish for a while, with small-business executives reluctant to hire amid the murky economic outlook. Almost two-thirds—64%—of small-business executives surveyed said they weren't expecting to add to their payrolls in the next year and another 12% planned to cut jobs, according to a U.S. Chamber of Commerce report to be released Monday. Just 19% said they would expand their work forces. This comes after a Labor Department report Friday showed employers added few jobs in June, and unemployment rose to 9.2%. The bleak figures joined other data showing the recovery losing momentum in recent...

Sometimes you see a headline so silly you have to wonder if it is really accurate. Please consider this headline of an exchange between first-term Rep. Renee Ellmers (R.-N.C.) and the Secretary of the Treasury: "Geithner: Taxes on Small Business Must Rise So Government Doesn’t Shrink" Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told the House Small Business Committee on Wednesday that the Obama administration believes taxes on small business must increase so the administration does not have to “shrink the overall size of government programs.” The administration’s plan to raise the tax rate on small businesses is part of its plan to...

(CNSNews.com) - Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told the House Small Business Committee on Wednesday that the Obama administration believes taxes on small business must increase so the administration does not have to “shrink the overall size of government programs.” The administration’s plan to raise the tax rate on small businesses is part of its plan to raise taxes on all Americans who make more than $250,000 per year—including businesses that file taxes the same way individuals and families do. (VIDEO AT LINK)

Thanks to the trillions of dollars that the Chinese have made flooding our shores with cheap products, China is now in a position of tremendous economic power. So what is China going to do with all of that money? One thing that they have decided to do is to buy up pieces of the United States and set up "special economic zones" inside our country from which they can continue to extend their economic domination. One of these "special economic zones" would be just south of Boise, Idaho and the Idaho government is eager to give it to them. China...

Another small-business support project is about to be unveiled by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)—this time in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia in southeastern Europe. While the endeavor is significantly smaller than other overseas small-business programs financed by U.S. taxpayers, it comes at a time when USAID is embarking upon other—and bigger—related initiatives. As the Monitor recently reported, for instance, the agency increased to $73 million the Sustainable Achievement of Business Expansion and Quality (SABEQ) project in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. (Monitor, May 16, 2011: Small-Business Initiative Gains Momentum, More Money) Macedonia Regional Small Business Development,...

When Congress revamped food-safety laws last year, small farmers and food producers won a victory when they were excluded from many of the new rules. Now, as the Food and Drug Administration implements the new Food Safety Modernization Act, the small businesses are hoping they aren't snagged by the new rules anyway. The legislation, which updates 100-year-old food-safety regulations, does not apply to meat, eggs or dairy products, which are regulated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Despite the exemption, it's still unclear how small food producers will be affected, said Robert Guenther, senior vice president of public policy for...

I’ve started more than a dozen small businesses. I’ve paid payrolls, health insurance, payroll taxes, workers comp, and unemployment insurance for hundreds of employees. Because of that, my employees were able to pay their mortgages, buy groceries, send their kids to college, and provide for their families. For one small business, I spent about $50 million on things like advertising, marketing, promotion, lawyers and accountants. That money enriched and employed thousands of others. And that’s just one small business. Think of the impact that thirty million small business owners have on the U.S. economy. No wonder we create 70% or...

At the start of the 112th Congress, my fellow Republicans and I made a commitment to turn the country’s economy around and get Americans back to work. Over the past two years in the minority, we could do little as the Obama Administration’s and Nancy Pelosi’s reckless spending increased our already massive debt by $3.5 trillion and our unemployment rate surged to ten percent. Republicans hit the ground running in January, voting to cut spending by $2.6 trillion by repealing the onerous ObamaCare law. In February, while the Obama administration reported a record-breaking monthly deficit of $223 billion, we simultaneously...

The numbers back up what small business owners have been saying for two years: Main Street suffered a brutal credit crunch. The total value of outstanding loans to small businesses plunged by $43 billion, or 6.2%, between June 2009 and June 2010, according to a report released this week by the Small Business Administration. That's a drop of $59 billion, or 8.3%, from June 2008. Measuring lending to small businesses is like trying to nail Jell-O to a wall, because every institution and government agency has its own definition of what constitutes a small business. For this week's study, the...

President Obama exhorted business leaders to "get in the game" during a speech Monday before the Chamber of Commerce, but small businesses say they can't do it until the administration stops changing the rules. While the speech drew a respectful, if muted, response from the Chamber, small-business leaders were underwhelmed, saying the administration's focus appears to be on major corporations, not them. "It sounded like the president was talking more to big business.

Pundits and politicos promote a magical myth: a coming small business hiring boom. That fantasy is completely disconnected from the harsh realities of private enterprise. Regardless of their ideological persuasion, pundits and politicos reliably repeat the mantra that "small business is the engine of jobs growth." The mantra is followed by the pundit-politico's belief that a "small business jobs boom is right around the corner." I have news for the pundits and politicos: ain't gonna happen. Why? The answer cannot be found in the manipulated and massaged Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers (have any real jobs been created, net of...

Health care law's massive, hidden tax change By Neil deMause, contributing writerMay 5, 2010: 11:00 PM ET NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- An all-but-overlooked provision of the health reform law is threatening to swamp U.S. businesses with a flood of new tax paperwork. Section 9006 of the health care bill -- just a few lines buried in the 2,409-page document -- mandates that beginning in 2012 all companies will have to issue 1099 tax forms not just to contract workers but to any individual or corporation from which they buy more than $600 in goods or services in a tax year.

Many of you have decided that you are going to attempt to start a business in the United States today. Many of you are still convinced that this is "the land of opportunity" and that starting a business is fairly easy. Are you sure about that? Are you certain that you have considered all of the headaches involved? Are you sure that you are ready to handle the thousands of regulations that apply to your business and the mountains of paperwork mandated by various levels of government? Are you prepared to deal with entrenched unions, predatory lawyers and rabid environmentalists?...

The news continues to fly out of Washington, D.C. tonight, some expected, some not and this one is guaranteed to infuriate everyone who has to try to keep up with the vile stack of paperwork created by government at every level. I’ll use the headline from Numismatic News via Numismaster.com: 1099 Repeal Goes Down in Senate Think that’s bad? Next time you buy ANYTHING from a small businessman and they have marked the price up 10% from December 2010 to January 2011, you can thank the President, the *itch of the House (currently), and Senator Harry (bring me your illegals)...

ARLINGTON, Va. - A colorful mural at an Arlington dog park depicting cartoon puppies frolicking and chasing bones is the subject of a federal lawsuit................. "The problem with Arlington sign code (is) whether a sign can go up or not or whether artwork can go up or not depends on the identity of who is speaking and what it is they're saying," Frommer says.

DUMFRIES, Va. - Tony Vazquez says the years he spent serving as a military police officer at Fort Belvoir prepared him to own his own pizza business. Vazquez and his wife, Shelley, are expected to open their Little Caesars franchise at 16708 Jefferson Davis Highway, Suite 121 in Dumfries on Thursday. “It was the discipline and teamwork I learned in the Army that made a big difference in my life,” he said. “One of the most important things I learned is that when you make a commitment, you stick to it. You must believe in what you are doing.” Tony...

Why Small Business Owners Trust the Tea Party By Scott Shane Wednesday, November 17, 2010 Filed under: Boardroom, Government & Politics, Public Square Businessweek thinks Tea Party policies will harm small business. Think again. In a recent Businessweek story entitled “Why Business Doesn’t Trust the Tea Party,” Lisa Lerer and John McCormick explain that the Tea Party platform is inconsistent with the goals of most business people. The Tea Party might sound good to those in business, they wrote, “as long as the corporation in question doesn’t have international operations, rely on immigrant labor, see the value of national monetary...