SBA Programs Get Short-Term Reprieve
The House and the Senate voted this week to temporarily extend by three and six months, respectively, authorization of the Small Business Administration and its programs.
The move “ensures that the agency has the stability it needs to provide our innovators and job creators the assistance they need to remain successful. While we continue to make progress on all of our reauthorization measures—SBIR/STTR, SBA’s loans and venture capital programs, contracting assistance, and management counseling — this temporary reauthorization will help keep America’s 29 million small businesses running through the holiday season,†said Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-Louisiana), who chairs the Senate small business committee.
Federal agency, departments, and programs require annual or periodic reauthorization during which they and their funding levels are tweaked or amended to meet changing needs. But with lawmakers’ attention focused primarily on getting healthcare reform bills to their respective floors for a final vote before the end of the year, it is unlikely that the agency will receive long-term reauthorization this year. Both Landrieu and Rep. Nydia Velazquez (D-New York), chair of the House small business committee, are working on legislation to update many of the agency’s programs.
Next, the Senate must decide whether it will accept or counter the House’s three-month extension with an authorization period somewhere between three and six months. Stay tuned.Senate Healthcare Reform Bill Gives Opt-Out Option
Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) announced this week that the Senate’s impending healthcare reform bill will indeed include a public option–sort of. Individual states will have the ability to opt out of having a government-run program. It’s a victory for liberals that also will soothe skittish Democrats who were wary of supporting a robust public option.
“The public option is not a silver bullet, [but] I believe it’s an important way to ensure competition and to level the playing field for patients with the insurance industry,†Reid said. “Under this concept, states will be able to decide what works for them.†He also said that the bill would include a provision for healthcare cooperatives.
Sen. Olympia Snowe, the moderate Maine Republican whose support the Obama administration so arduously courted, is “deeply disappointed†by Reid’s decision.
“I still believe that a fallback, safety net plan, to be triggered and available immediately in states where insurance companies fail to offer plans that meet the standards of affordability, could have been the road toward achieving a broader bipartisan consensus in the Senate,†Snowe said.
Speaking to reporters on Monday, Reid indicated that he’s ready to move forward without Republicans, if necessary, but also couldn’t confirm that he has the required 60 votes to get the bill through the Senate and prevent a filibuster. In addition, Democrat-turned-Independent Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut announced on Tuesday that he won’t vote for a bill with a public option, telling the Associated Press he’s worried it would be too costly for taxpayers and drive up insurance premiums. Lieberman’s opposition could be a big problem because his vote is needed to reach the magic number of 60.
Former Senator Awarded Congessional Gold Medal
When trailblazing politician former Sen. Edward W. Brooke III
received the Congressional Gold Medal on Wednesday he happily accepted the accolades from the president and other lawmakers. But the Republican from Massachusetts also took the time to scold both Republicans and Democrats for their bipartisan bickering.“We’ve got to get together,†Brooke said, casting his gaze on Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. “We have no alternative. There’s nothing left. It’s time for politics to be put aside on the back burner.â€
Brooke, 90, served in the U.S. Senate from 1967 to 1979 and was the first African American to be elected by popular vote to the Senate. He was first elected to statewide office as Massachusetts attorney general in 1962, on the same night that the late Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Massachusetts) first won his Senate seat, prompting President John F. Kennedy to say, “That’s the biggest news in the country,†recalled Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid at the ceremony to honor Brooke.
President Barack Obama, who attended the ceremony in the Capitol Rotunda, noted in his remarks
that Brooke had blazed a trail that he and others have followed.“When he ran for statewide office in Massachusetts, and one reporter pointed out that he was black, Republican, and Protestant, seeking office in a white, Democratic, and Catholic state … Ed was unfazed,†Obama said. “It was, to say the least, an improbable profile for the man who would become the first African American state attorney general, and the first popularly elected African American senator. ”
Senator Ted Kennedy and DC Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton jointly sponsored legislation to honor Brooke.
To view the Gold Medal ceremony, click here.
SBA Seeks Comments on Proposed Size Standard Increases
The Small Business Administration is looking for comments in response to the agency’s proposal to increase sizestandards for 71 types of businesses, many of them in retail trade, hospitality and food services sectors. If adopted, this first round of proposed increases would expand the eligibility of several thousand small businesses to participate in SBA’s loan, contracting and other programs.
According to the SBA’s definition, a size standard represent the largest size that a business, including its subsidiaries and affiliates, can be and still be classified as small. The agency has launched a comprehensive review of every industry size standard, which hasn’t been done in more than 25 years ago.
SBA Chief Karen Mills said the size standard review aims to ensure that they “are current and reflect changes in the economy and the marketplace.â€
This should be good news to minority small businesses that have complained for many years that some of the agency’s size standards are outdated and do not adequately reflect the cost of doing business in 2009, thereby limiting their ability to grow and compete in the federal marketplace.
For more information and instructions on how to submit comments by the December 21 deadline, click here.
House Introduces Healthcare Bill
Following months of intense negotiation–with more haggling inevitably to come–House Democratic leaders introduced their long-awaited healthcare bill, HR 3962, to much fanfare on the West Front of the Capitol Thursday morning.
“This a historic moment for our nation and families. For nearly a century, leaders of every party and political philosophy have fought for health insurance reform,†said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California) at a rally that featured rock music and health insurance (or lack thereof) horror stories from members’ constituents.
The $1.055 trillion bill would expand coverage to approximately 36 million more Americans. It does not include a robust public option favored by House liberals, which would have paid hospitals and healthcare providers at Medicare rates plus five percent. Under the bill introduced, the government would instead negotiate rates with providers. Two conflicts heating up include abortion funding and care for illegal immigrants.
Small businesses with payrolls below $250,000 would be exempt from the employer mandate. Firms with payrolls between $250,000 and $400,000 would pay a graduated penalty. In 2013, small businesses with up to 10 employees can enter the exchange, followed by firms with up to 2o workers in 2014.
President Obama was scheduled to meet privately that evening with members of the black, progressive Hispanic and Asian Pacific American caucuses, groups he needs to hold in line to ensure the House gets the 218 votes needed to pass a reform bill.
Calling the bill a “government takeover†of healthcare, House Minority Leader John Boehner said in a statement his office released that bill would raise premiums and “kill jobs with tax hikes and new mandates.â€
Lawmakers have been given 72 hours to review the nearly 2,000-page document. The bill will be debated and, if leadership has its way, voted on next week, perhaps even on Saturday.