|
August 25, 2005
Vol. 1, No.
27
|
|
|
|
Small Business
Remember the
day the death tax died
By Jack Faris
NFIB
September 6.
If
you're an American small-business owner, draw a
red circle around this date on your calendar. It
could be one of the most important dates of your
life, the lives of your family and the future
existence of your business.
In
less than 20 days, on September 6, the United
States Senate will reconvene in legislative
session and is scheduled to take action on the
Death Tax. Which means that between now and
then, those elected lawmakers who can determine
the survival of small businesses are not in
Washington, D.C., but are back home in their
states.
Small-business owners need to take this unique
opportunity to meet with their senators
face-to-face to tell them to vote to repeal one
of the most dangerous tax measures ever to see
the light of day -- the Death Tax.
[continued]
All dead
Sarbanes-Oxley: Seriously Misconceived
Given
the state
of the economy and relatively robust corporate
profits, one would expect the stock market to be
higher. One factor why it isn't may be the
Sarbanes-Oxley legislation, enacted in 2002 as a
knee-jerk reaction to the corporate scandals of
Enron, WorldCom and others, says Bruce Bartlett,
a senior fellow with the National Center for
Policy Analysis.
Estimates of the cost of the legislation in
terms of higher audit fees and lost productivity
have risen every year, as companies learn more
about how its provisions.
[continued]
Federal
statistics
Democrats need new ideas, not new think tanks
By Kevin A. Hassett
Bloomberg.com
When you
weigh the things that have led to Republican
political domination in recent years, you can't
help but be struck by the dearth of innovative
ideas coming from the Democrats.
Even Los Angeles Times columnist Michael
Kinsley, no fan of the Republicans, has noticed.
“It's true that the Republicans are the party of
ideas and the Democrats are the party of
reaction,” he wrote earlier this month.
“Republicans set the agenda, and Democrats try
to talk the country out of it.”
With Democrats faltering in the marketplace of
ideas and reeling from electoral losses, a group
of financiers has initiated a visible and
collective movement to recover--a vast left-wing
conspiracy, you might call it.
The Washington Post reported on Aug. 7
that at least 80 liberals have pledged to
contribute $1 million apiece to fund a new
network of think tanks through an organization
known as the Democracy Alliance.
[continued]
|
|
WHY
BusinessNevada
|
|
|
|
Tax Reform
Nevada
businesses will enjoy TASC
protections
Taxpayer protection measure to offer improvements over
Colorado plan
By Steven
Miller
BusinessNevada
The idea of
bringing Colorado-style taxpayer protections to
the Silver State pleases most Nevada businesspeople.
When they learn how successfully Colorado’s Taxpayer
Bill of Rights (TABOR) has kept state government growth
in check, or they learn that personal income growth in
Colorado since TABOR outstripped almost every other
state, the common reaction is to say something like,
“Great!—Where do I sign up?”
Other business people, however, are a little more
cautious. They want to know exactly how a key feature of
the Colorado plan—rebating the surplus revenues that
come in above the constitutional limit—would work in
Nevada.
Many of these businessmen and women point to the
behavior of legislative Democrats earlier this year when
Nevada Governor Kenny Guinn proposed returning to
taxpayers $300 million from massive state revenue
surpluses. Under Guinn’s original plan, vehicle
owners—the largest group in state databases—would have
received a rebate proportional to the registration fees
each owner had paid into state coffers in 2004.
[continued]
Law & Labor
Self-insuring plan
worth the risk to some
By Alana Roberts
InBusinessLasVegas
Nevada
Restaurant Association leaders are touting the
benefits of self-insuring workers' compensation
benefits. They say that not only did members of their
self-insured group save money on their insurance
premiums, but also members of the organization's
self-insured group were recently refunded more than $1.5
million in dividends.
[continued]
Toys
Tax dollars
revive
Maglev project
By Tony Illia
LV Business Press
The newly reauthorized
federal
transportation bill allocates $45 million for a super
high-speed train connecting Las Vegas to Anaheim, a
project that was first proposed over 17 years ago.
"I believe
the Maglev train will be the future of travel between
places like Southern Nevada and Southern California,"
said Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., who helped secure funding.
"Airports are overburdened with the amount of short-haul
flights and we must start reinvesting in train travel."
[continued]
AFL-CIO Crack-Up
Labor split penetrating individual unions
Carpenters now
fighting over
going back into AFL-CIO
By Ken Ritter
Associated Press
Two challengers
to
carpenter's union leadership said Tuesday they don't
expect to succeed in their bid to unseat union President
Douglas McCarron.
But United
Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America
presidential challenger Tom Lewandowski and Ken Little,
candidate for secretary-treasurer, said they intend to
raise issues about members' rights -- and their union's
decision pull out of the AFL-CIO in 2001.
[continued]
Research
The Stem-Cell War
The folks who
brought you Silicon Valley want to ignite a biotech
boom, and California's Prop. 71, with $3 billion for
stem-cell research, was supposed to be the match. They
got a political conflagration instead.
By Betsy Morris
Fortune
Lisa Altman
couldn't sleep. On a Thursday night in late July, her
husband was traveling, and the novel she'd been reading
was keeping her awake.
|
Scientists say
they are a step closer to tailored
medical treatments without the technical
difficulties or the ethical issues of using
human embryos. |
|
So At 5 a.m. she gave up, flipped on the television,
and, still groggy, began to watch CNN. The news that
streamed across the bottom of the screen jolted her out
of her stupor. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of
Tennessee had broken with George W. Bush and declared
that he would support an expansion of embryonic
stem-cell research. Altman sat bolt upright. Then, as
Frist began to speak, she hung on every word. "I could
just kiss him," she remembers thinking.
[continued]
Corruption
In
September unions
start financial disclosures
By Carl Horowitz
LaborWatch
By the end of September,
the Labor Department will require several major
unions—including the AFL-CIO national headquarters, the
Communications Workers of America and the National
Education Association—to submit newly revised financial
disclosure forms.
Despite
the grousing of union leaders, the new detailed forms
are a much-needed improvement that will help workers and
government regulators track union expenses and expose
illegal activity. Now union members will have a better
chance of learning where their dues are spent.
[Download
the report]
Subscribe
to
BUSINESSNevada
Know a colleague who’d be interested? Forward
BUSINESSNevada!
Receiving
BUSINESSNevada
via your trade association?
Click here and get it
DIRECT!
|
