Small Business

Designating today as Small Business Saturday is a great idea, and hopefully a lot of folks will take part. Sometimes a simple trigger like this can bring about a change of habits in consumers. But legislators and state government administration need to develop some new habits of their own to help strengthen the economic viability of small businesses in our state, or we will continue to bleed jobs as these mom & pop operations fold under the pressure of market dominance by faceless, high-volume conglomerates.

On the local food side, it looks like Kay Hagan's cosponsored Amendment to shield small farmers has a good chance of passing:

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."

All the big bills flirt with death. Why? Because it is really, really hard to move legislation through Congress. I have seen the most straightforward bills--like the ones to name post offices--get slowed to a halt while hand wringing and horse trading goes on.

I live in NC near Raleigh. My job is in the pharmceutical industry. I work in Cary and don't often leave the office during the work day for much of anything. I bring in my lunch every day and may go out to eat with friends once in a blue moon.

However, some things are really important -- important enough to get me out of my office on a weekday -- so one Thursday several weeks ago I met up with other proponents of a strong public option in America's health insurance reform fight at Kay Hagan's Raleigh office.

I'm confused.

When Freshman Congressman Heath Shuler voted for the Iraq Supplemental providing for funding the troops, ensuring their readiness, and establishing a timeline for withdrawal, I thought he meant that he'd like to see our troops out of Iraq's civil war. He said this,

"The time has come for a new direction in Iraq. Tonight I joined with a majority of the House of Representatives to once again to change our course, while demanding accountability and fiscal responsibility over the war in Iraq. This Congress will not grant President Bush a blank check to continue this war indefinitely."

Rep. Shuler, however, then voted against the McGovern Amendment (HR2237), which would "provide for the redeployment of United States Armed Forces and defense contractors from Iraq."

cross posted at Rambling Rambles

I saw this over at Govexec.com.

So, it seems that Kerry is going to reinvigorate the Small Business Admin. All I can say is great. We all know that small businesses are good for not only the national economy but also the local ones as well. I hope that Kerry will use his role to also look into what we can do to protect small, local business from the big mega-stores and mega-corporations too. With the founder of the Grameen Bank set to accept the Nobel Peace Prize in less than a week now, it should be on the front of all our minds what we can do to help the small person.

Reminds me of what Dad told me when I was small when I asked about the difference between the Democrats and the Republicans. He told me that Republicans were for big business and the rich people and that the Democrats were for everyone else. Made sense to me then and makes sense to me now.