Will California Legislature Help or Hinder National Economic Momentum?

Trade wars and tariffs may be roiling Wall Street but businesses along Main Street, America, continue to power our prosperity, according to NFIB’s latest Small Business Economic Trends report released this morning. I’m worried less about external forces hindering this great economy than I am about the internal threats emanating from state capitols across the […]

California Small Business Owners Thankful Federal, Not State, Policies Drive the Economy

After a brief hiccup over a government shutdown, the small-business economy across America is back humming, according to the latest Small Business Economic Trends (SBET) report released today. Now, it remains to be seen how much damage California policymakers can do to it with purposely self-inflicted wounds. Federal policies have always prevailed over state ones, […]

Internet Privacy Need Not Come at the Expense of Small Business

Although small business is often described as the backbone of the state economy, the backbone can be severely tested when laws are enacted that impose high costs, competitive challenges, or take away critical services. Unfortunately, in the desire to protect consumer privacy, not enough attention was paid to the impact of the California Consumer Privacy […]

Legislative Victories and Many Challenges Ahead for Small Businesses in California

With Governor Jerry Brown’s final bill signature/veto deadline in our rear-view mirror, and the upcoming election of a new Governor and legislature just around the corner, now is an important time for small business owners—and all California taxpayers—to reflect on some of the greatest victories from this past session and important challenges ahead in the […]

Home Stretch: Employer Mandates and Environmental Overreach Dominate End of Session

Although many in Sacramento cite selective statistics to claim California’s business climate is great—such as our current 5th largest GDP in the world—small business owners understand the reality that California’s ever-increasing cost of doing business is strangling small businesses from expanding and forcing many others to leave the state. In a survey released just last […]

NFIB Unveils 2017 Legislative Voting Record

Last week, the National Federation of Independent Business/California, the voice of small business in California, unveiled our annual voting record for each Senator and Assemblymember in the State Capitol. Each year, NFIB/CA identifies and lobbies on bills which would have the most significant impact, either positive or negative, on small businesses. Based on their vote on these critical […]

Single-Payer Health Insurance Bad for Small Business

The not surprising reaction of some in the California legislature to the debate over repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act is to propose a state-run single-payer healthcare model. I say “not surprising“ because there have been attempts in the past to secure a single-payer plan in California, and the negative reaction in deep blue California to the Trump […]

Improving the Health Care Law for Small Business, Employees and the Economy

As President Donald Trump and the new Congress sharpen their scalpel to cut and remodel the Affordable Care Act, what does that mean for small businesses in California? Covered California, the state program that administers the health care act, is probably a better model compared to other state exchanges. Yet, the program has not been devoid […]

Small Business Saturday a Success

With the holiday shopping season focused on big name companies on Black Friday and the growth of online buying, small business, rightfully called the ‘engine of the job-making economy,’ is sometimes ignored. That’s why it is satisfying to see the survey results released by the National Federation of Independent Business and American Express declaring the […]