NFIB

CONTACT: Suzanne Budge, 208-850-3065 or Tony Malandra, 415-664-9685

Results from member ballots to set 2009 legislative agenda

BOISE, Idaho -- Voting still continues for Idaho's small business owners, those employers of more workers and generators of more jobs than big business, big labor and big government.

Each year, the National Federation of Independent Business, America's leading small business association, polls its members on issues vital to their survival as entrepreneurs at both the state and federal levels. The federal ballots will be going out next month. But right now, NFIB/Idaho members are mailing, faxing, e-mailing, and one-clicking their responses to six questions on their 2009 State Member Ballot:

• Should the state of Idaho replace the current tax on fuel with a vehicle miles traveled tax (VMT) to fund future highway construction and maintenance?
• Should state or local governments have the power to revoke the business license(s) of an employer, if an employee is found to be unauthorized to work in the U.S.?
• Should the Legislature establish toll roads or toll lanes?
• Do you support legislation that provides tax incentives to businesses to promote economic development and job growth?
• Should the Legislature make it mandatory for employers to pay for health-insurance coverage to employees?
• If No to Question 5, should the state require employers to pay into a state system to cover their uninsured workers?

Unique among most associations, NFIB centers its state and federal lobbying positions on what its members tell it -- through regular balloting -- are important to their survival and solvency. Small businesses are not smaller versions of bigger business. The three biggest distinctions separating them are personal income tax rates, which are more important to small business owners than corporate tax rates, because more than 80 percent of them are single filers; healthcare, because whereas almost every big business or corporation provides healthcare to their employees, less than half of small business can afford to do so; and regulatory costs. It costs small business owners 45 percent more per employee to comply with the same regulation as a big business.

Results from the NFIB/Idaho 2009 Member Ballot will be publicized after a 5 percent return. For more information about the Member Ballot, please phone NFIB/Idaho State Director Suzanne Budge at 208-850-3065.