The recent announcements by major research organizations that employer-sponsored health insurance premiums had soared an average of more than 11 percent this year came as no surprise to millions of American small-business owners. After four consecutive years of opening their mail to find invoices demanding double-digit increases, they've grown painfully accustomed to skyrocketing premiums that are far beyond marketplace realities.
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| Jack Faris is president of NFIB (the National Federation of Independent Business), the nation's largest small-business advocacy group. |
Unfortunate, too, are other outrageous raids on the cash registers of small firms that are equally sinister but not quite as obvious. Workers' compensation costs, taxes by overlapping levels of government, lost productivity due to fending off unreasonable regulations and rapidly rising energy prices are just a sample of the challenges today's entrepreneurs must endure.
It's truly a testament to the creativity and flexibility of the people who start and run the nation's 23 million small businesses that they are able to hold the governrnent at bay with one hand and mind the store with the other.
Minding the store is where it's all supposed to happen. Satisfied customers mean good sales and good sales bring more income. More income means more jobs-income for more families who, in turn, become customers and channel that money back into the economy.
Simply put, small business plus income equals jobs.
In early October, the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) will honor members of Congress who care about those families, their jobs and the small businesses that generate 60-to-80 percent of net new jobs annually.
Earning the NFIB Guardian of Small Business Award is no easy feat for federal lawmakers. _It meas they have to vote at least 70 percent of the time on the key small-business issues that help small firms - 99.7 percent of all employers - provide jobs for half of the nation's private-sector employees and pay nearly half of the total U.S. private payroll.
Although strapped for time and scrambling to keep their companies in the black, this fall small-business owners must add at least one more important item to their already crammed schedules: Before Election Day they should check to see if their representatives and senators have received the coveted Guardian of Small Business Award.
Apparently some lawmakers who claim to be friends of small business only cozy up once the campaign season begins. Stump speeches have a way of fogging the airwaves and fuzzing the issues, but there's no way members of Congress can fudge their voting records to win the award. The ratings are based on votes cast on key issues picked directly by small-business owners through NFIB's long-standing ballot process that is open to all of the organization's 600,000 members. And lawmakers are told in advance which votes will be counted. No credit is given for stump speeches or campaign advertisements.
By checking official voting records, small-business owners can go to the polls armed with the knowledge of who was minding their concerns in Washington while they were minding the store back home.
Jack Faris is president of NFIB (the National Federation of Independent Business), the nation's largest small-business advocacy group. A non-profit, non-partisan organization founded in 1943, NFIB represents the consensus views of its 600,000 members in Washington, D.C., and all 50 state capitals. More information is available on-line at www.NFIB.com.
