NFIB

CONTACT: Daniel Markels, 650-394-4091 or Tony Malandra, 415-664-9685

Results from member ballots to set 2009 legislative agenda

SALEM, Ore. -- Voting still continues for Oregon'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/Oregon members are mailing, faxing, e-mailing and one-clicking their responses to five questions on their 2009 State Member Ballot:

• Should the state of Oregon establish the Oregon Health Insurance Exchange and require all individual market purchasers of health insurance to purchase from it?
• Should the state of Oregon protect subchapter S corporations from any increase in the corporate minimum tax?
• Should the state of Oregon pass a Small Business Bill of Rights?
• Should the state of Oregon clarify the definition of "disabled individual" in the law that requires public bodies to purchase products or services from nonprofits that employ such individuals?
• Should the state of Oregon integrate workforce development with the public education system by offering students more vocational education options in the public schools?

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/Oregon 2009 Member Ballot will be publicized after a 5 percent return. For more information about the Member Ballot, please phone NFIB Western Regional Policy Director Daniel Markels at 650-394-4091.