The election season is mercifully over and the Texas Legislature is set to convene for the 85th time to consider a wide ranging public policy initiatives. Many of those pieces of legislation will have the potential to cause great harm to your ability to do business – many will have the opposite impact and allow small businesses to continue to grow the economy, create jobs, and serve our communities in untold ways. Your team at NFIB/Texas will be there to make sure that those harmful bills never see the light of day while pursuing a strong pro-small business agenda. There is much comfort for us knowing we represent the consensus voice of over 21,000 small business owners in the halls of the capitol. That is the value and importance of our ballot process.
The 85th Legislature will run for 140 days and over 7,000 individual pieces of legislation will be filed and considered by the 181 state senators and state representatives. We will be there to read and analyze all those bills and make you aware of the good ones and warn you of the bad ones. Be ready to contact your elected officials when you see an NFIB Action Alert.
What else can you do? Simple, make plans to attend the 2017 NFIB/Texas Small Business Day at the Capitol on February 13 -14 in Austin. You won’t be disappointed. At Small Business Days in the past we have had keynotes by Texas Governors, Lt. Governors, the Speaker of the House, State Comptrollers, and other noted speakers. Governors have taken the event to lay out their top policy concerns for the session. Governor Perry used the event to highlight his desire to exempt many businesses from the onerous state franchise tax and Governor Abbott used the opportunity to lay out his demand that he will not sign a spending bill that does not contain “significant and meaningful tax relief.” The legislature answered by enacting the NFIB/Texas endorsed 25 percent cut in the franchise tax and tax relief for Texas homeowners.
Watch for further updates about this biennial meeting and join with hundreds of other small business owners and help us to pursue a strong presence at the state capitol.
