JUNEAU, Alaska, Sept. 29, 2014—Alaska’s voice of small business today announced its endorsement of Gov. Sean Parnell for re-election.
“If there’s one radiant clarity in this election of needless noise created by political musical chairs, it is that Gov. Sean Parnell has an unassailable record as an effective advocate for Main Street, mom-and-pop small businesses,” said Denny DeWitt, Alaska state director for the National Federation of Independent Business. “That’s why 80 percent of our members voted to endorse the Parnell/Sullivan ticket for governor and lieutenant governor.”
With 350,000 dues-paying members across the nation, including 2,000 in Alaska, the National Federation of Independent Business is the nation’s largest and leading small-business association. The endorsement of Parnell was made by the NFIB SAFE Trust (Save America’s Free Enterprise), the political action committee of NFIB.
DeWitt cited a litany of Parnell’s small-business accomplishments, including his signing into law House Bill 32 reducing the number of multiple business licenses to one, his early support and eventual signature of House Bill 76 holding down unemployment insurance premiums, his early backing and eventual signature of Senate Bill 21 reforming oil taxation that will increase production, his protection of the tourism industry, and his opposition to placing the state in future financial peril by expanding Medicaid.
“The success Governor Parnell has had in protecting small businesses from additional tax and regulatory burdens, combined with his fostering of small-business growth in Alaska, is one other chief executives across the nation would benefit from emulating. Part of that success is due to his policy of including small business in the decision-making process of state policy at the very beginning,” said DeWitt.
According to an analysis by the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Office of Advocacy, “Small businesses significantly impact Alaska economy. They represent 96.5 percent of all employers and employ 53.1 percent of the private-sector labor force. Small businesses are crucial to the fiscal condition of the state and numbered 69,177 in 2010 … Most of Alaska’s small businesses are very small as 76.4 percent of all businesses have no employees, and most employers have fewer than 20 employees.”
Brief, single-pages of bulleted information on the power of the small-business vote, what a small business is and the distinctions it has from a big business can be found here.
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For more than 70 years, the National Federation of Independent Business has been the Voice of Small Business, taking the message from Main Street to the halls of Congress and all 50 state legislatures. NFIB annually surveys its members on state and federal issues vital to their survival as America’s economic engine and biggest creator of jobs. NFIB’s educational mission is to remind policymakers that small businesses are not smaller versions of bigger businesses; they have very different challenges and priorities.
National Federation of Independent Business/Alaska
P.O. Box 34761
Juneau, AK 99801
907-723-6667
