Storming the Hill

Now that the Republicans are in command, the small-business lobby hopes this new congressional session will bring it more victories than losses. Here's the view from the field.

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For the small-business lobby, it's go time.

When the new Congress gets down to work this month, there will be a batch of small-business ideas at the top of its legislative agenda, and a Republican-dominated Senate eager to help push some of them into law. "I think there's been a real niche within the Republican Party for small business; it's sort of consistent with our ideology," says Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee chair Olympia Snowe (R-Maine). The recent switch in the Senate from Democratic to Republican control has elevated a whole cast of GOP characters to the influential rank of committee chairman, Snowe among them.

The National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), the 600,000-member interest group that represents small and independent business owners, is ready with a long wish list for this session. "We hope to get a few more things done than we did last Congress," says the group's manager of legislative affairs, Dan Blankenburg. "The NFIB is very definitely in a better position this year," says the new chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa). "Republicans see small business as a job-creating machine." Not, of course, that Democrats have anything against small business. Both parties pay lip service in general; they just fight over details. Here's a look at what's at stake in Washington this year for small business, and at the chances that each of these 10 agenda items important to the NFIB will be signed into law by President Bush.

Bush Tax Cuts

The Agenda: Republicans desperately want to make sure that Bush's 2001 $1.35-trillion tax-cut package becomes permanent. (As of now it's set to expire in 2011.) That includes repealing the estate tax, which Republicans like to call the "death tax." Repeal is viewed as a boon to small-business owners who wish to pass their companies on to their children.

The Prospects: Democrats didn't come out strongly against the tax cuts last fall -- not surprising in an election year. But anti-tax-cut posturing is sure to increase as individual Democrats compete for leadership of their rudderless party and position themselves to run for the Oval Office in 2004. Even so, bet on this package getting through: Republicans have control, they want cuts, and every member of Congress loves an omnibus tax bill that can be larded with all sorts of little-seen provisions and loopholes for constituents and favorite special-interest groups.

Association Health Plans

The Agenda: The NFIB has made association health plans (AHPs) a health-care priority for 2003. The idea is to allow small companies to band together across state lines to form group health plans through industry and trade associations like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Restaurant Association. That would give small businesses the same flexibility and buying power as large companies and labor unions, which can offer one set of health benefits to all employees without having to carve out specific plans to conform to the quirks of each state's regulations. "AHPs certainly should be looked at," says Senator Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), the new chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. A bill to allow AHPs passed the House but never reached a vote in last year's Democrat-controlled Senate.

The Prospects: "I'm attracted to it," Gregg says, "but we need to find some ways to make sure the insurers of last resort -- Blue Cross Blue Shield -- are taken care of." The sticking point will be what will happen to Blue Cross Blue Shield if other insurers attempt to cherry-pick healthier (and therefore less costly) groups. John Parker, spokesman for the Blues, jokes that his nightmare would be an AHP for a trade association of aerobics instructors, which would be heavily courted by his competition, leaving him with only a more sickly pool to insure. AHPs may never see the president's pen, since entrenched Democrats and insurance-industry players will likely fight it to the death.

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