On April 6, the House Small Business Committee approved, 14-12, a resolution (H. Res. 22) expressing the sense of the House that small businesses are entitled to a Small Business Bill of Rights. The committee held a hearing on this subject on March 8 (see The Source, 3/11/05).
In his opening remarks, Chair Donald Manzullo (R-IL) stated, “Our small businesses provide work for the majority of Americans and create 70 percent of all new jobs each year…They need freedom from excessive taxation, surging health care costs, burdensome regulations, abusive lawsuits and skyrocketing energy costs to continue to provide opportunities for working Americans.”
Sponsored by Rep. Ric Keller (R-FL), the resolution states that small businesses are entitled to: 1) the right to join together to purchase affordable health insurance for small business employees, who make up a large portion of the millions of Americans without health care coverage; 2) the right to tax laws that allow family-owned small businesses to survive over several generations and offer them incentives to grow; 3) the right to be free from frivolous lawsuits that harm law-abiding small businesses and prevent them from creating new jobs; and 4) the right to be free of unnecessary, restrictive regulations and paperwork that waste the time and energy of small businesses while hurting production and preventing job creation.
During consideration of the bill, the committee approved, by voice vote, an amendment offered by Rep. Keller that would additionally provide that small businesses are entitled to the right to relief from high energy costs; the right to equal treatment, as compared to large businesses, when seeking access to start-up and expansion capital and credit; and the right to open access to the government procurement marketplace by breaking up large contracts to give small business owners equal opportunity to compete for federal contracts.
The committee rejected the following amendments:
