Bailing Out The Bear
One of the more entertaining sideshows to the spectacle of the Federal Reserve bailing out Bear Stearns belongs to the contortionists -- the ideologues wh... Read story
Robb Mandelbaum
UPDATE: Reform Stares Senate In The Eye; Senate Flees
Yesterday was a rare day in Washington: 100 Senators were present and voting on amendments to the budget resolution. And late last night, Senator Jim DeMi... Read story
Earmark Ban Heads To Senate, On The Candidates' Backs
The possible moratorium on earmarks in the House of Representatives that I Read story
Earmarks: Get 'Em While They Last
Does your company need a leg up in the marketplace? Is the Navy's procurement officer giving your widgets the cold shoulder? Then act now -- it may not b... Read story
Health Care Poll: Bill It To The Company
This is not a horse race blog, so the Entrepreneurial Agenda has little to add to all the ink (and even more pixels) dedicated to analyzing the results fr... Read story
Change Small Business Can Believe In
Saying it was time to change the widespread practice of diverting small business contracts to "some of the largest corporations in the world," the Read story
NAFTA History?
There was no ambiguity in last night's Democratic debate when it came to NAFTA. Both candidates plainly said that they were willing to dump the trade trea... Read story
Supreme Court Opens New Front In 401(k) Suits
This was shaping up to be a good week for business at the Supreme Court. On Wednesday, the justices delivered decisions in Read story
Details, Details: Obama's Economic Agenda
The knock on Senator from Illinois -- and it's not just coming from the Senators from Arizona and New York -- is that he's long on vision and short on nit... Read story
Hillary Clinton, Solutioneer
A throwaway line at a Nevada debate last month be... Read story
Ready, Set, Spend
Get out your checkbooks, small business folk -- the economic stimulus package is about to become law. You'll recall that when we last Read story
Soldiering On to Remake the SBA
In an expanded interview, Steven Preston, head of the Small Business Administration, talks about his efforts to improve the agency's processes -- and its image. Read story
Soldiering On to Remake the SBA
Steven Preston has his work cut out for him. Read story
The Senate: Unstimulated, For Now
Senate Democrats were apparently repelled by Montana Senator (and Finance Committee chair) Max Baucus's audacious move to Read story
Are Small Biz Incentives The Best Way To Stoke The Economy?
Not even close, says Mark Zandi of Economy.com. In fact, according to Zandi's study , ... Read story
How Much Will The Stimulus Help Your Business?
UPDATED AT 1:59 PM MONDAY: If you came away from all the talk last week about an "economic growth" package not knowing how the measures under discu... Read story
McCainomics: A Stimulating Speech
Yesterday John McCain, harvesting votes in South Carolina, offered his vision of an economic stimulus package: a tax cut triple play. But while the plan s... Read story
The Small Business Debate That Wasn't
The U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce has a dream ... Read story
In The ER, Waiting Is The Hardest Part
Researchers at Harvard Medical School have handed another inconvenient truth to the politicos -- and I'm thinking specifically of Rudy Giuliani here -- wh... Read story
Carbon: To Tax Or Trade, Revisited
A couple months ago, I wondered why all the candidates... Read story
Decision Iowa: The Aftermath
Anyone with even a trace of enthusiasm for politics had to be mesmerized by the proceedings in Iowa last night. Today, Senator Barack Obama arrived with a... Read story
In Congress We Trust
I bring good news to those of you who feared Congress made a lot of promises but did nothing this past year: it did something! I stumbled across small but... Read story
Iowa Entrepreneurs Decide (Or Not): None Of The Above?
Notwithstanding the fact that these days you can't walk down the street in Des Moines without running into one or another campaign entourage, our panelist... Read story
The SBA's 2008 Budget, Half Full
A couple weeks ago it looked, to the untrained eye, like Congress was heading toward an appropriation for the Small Business Administration, one that plac... Read story
The NFIB's Heath Care Principles: Same Old Medicine; New Bottle
Just in advance of Christmas, the National Federation of Independent Business introduced last week its "Small Business Principles for Health Care Reform."... Read story
This Company is not a Bank -- Or Is It?
This is not something I anticipated when I went into business, but over the years, I've found that many employees, especially at the hourly level, have fi... Read story
Iowa Entrepreneurs Decide, Part V: Anybody Under Taxed?
Small business owners are presumed to be more heavily invested in economic issues -- taxes, spending, trade -- than voters at large, but these topics prov... Read story
A Healthy Discussion -- Iowa Entrepreneurs Decide, Part IV
Health care came up surprisingly deep into the conversation. This year several panelists saw their premiums increase about 25 percent; this was high, they... Read story
Republicans Debate Climate; Moderator Loses (And Huckabee Surprises)
I'm still trying to sort out why I found the exchange on global warming in yesterday's Republican debate so surprising. Was it my imagination, or did the ... Read story
Energy And Environment: Kucinich To The Rescue? (Part III, cont'd)
Our conversation with entrepreneurial Iowans in advance of the caucuses continues. To read the first half of the energy and environment discussion, cl... Read story
Iowa Entrepreneurs Decide, Part III: Energy And The Environment
On the day of our forum, the price of gas in Des Moines hung at about $2.90 a gallon. But only two of the panelists reported that expensive fuel had notic... Read story
Iowa Entrepreneurs Decide, Part II: Immigration (continued)
To read the first half of the immigration discussion, click Read story
Iowa Entrepreneurs Decide, Part II: Immigration
Immigration was clearly the chief preoccupation of our group of small business people. But if the emotional debate over America's newest arrivals often hi... Read story
Decision Iowa: An Entrepreneurs' Forum -- Part I
Is it just me, or do this year's Iowa Caucuses seem more important than ever? (It could just be me, I suppose: I'm from Iowa, so I'm biased, and I also ha... Read story
Mandate, Schmandate: The Obama-Clinton Health Care Tiff Is Much Ado About Nothing
National Public Radio had a succinct look at last weeks' squabble over health ... Read story
Hispanics Aren't Feeling The Love
The United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce is feeling neglected, and it's not because the immigration controversy ... Read story
And The Winner Of The GOP Debate Is...Huckabee? (Redux)
Well, that might be a stretch. But the consensus out there is that if he didn't win, he did very well -- and certainly will only improve his standing. Mar... Read story
Republicans Debate: Whither Legal Immigration?
Small business finally elbowed its way into the Republican conversation last night, if only briefly. The venue was the YouTube Read story
Biden-Energy
Senator Joe Biden detailed his roadmap to energy independence today, and among other things he called for sacrifice -- something that only somebody who ha... Read story
Cash And Carry
Wow, there's so much to talk about when the conversation turns, as it does periodically, to taxing the "carried interest" that fund managers collect on th... Read story
