NFIB

CONTACT: Troy Nichols, 360-786-8675 or Tony Malandra, 415-664-9358

Results from member ballots to set 2009 legislative agenda

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

• Should the Legislature provide catastrophic healthcare coverage to all Washington residents, funded by a payroll tax of 1 percent paid by employees and 3 percent to 5 percent by employers?
• Should the Legislature prohibit employers from holding mandatory employee meetings about religious, political or labor organization issues?
• Should the Legislature freeze/cut spending or raise taxes to address the projected $3.2 billion state budget deficit?
• Should policymakers set up a review of the relationship between the state and tribal businesses, particularly in new areas of commerce in which tribes compete with non-tribal citizens?
• Should the Legislature increase the felony threshold from $250 to $750?

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/Washington 2009 Member Ballot will be publicized after a 5 percent return. For more information about the Member Ballot, please phone NFIB/Washington State Director Troy Nichols at 360-786-8675.