Chamber Agenda Promotes Jobs, Growth

America faces challenges and opportunities that must be met and mastered to restore growth, create jobs, and compete globally. The U.S. Chamber will commit tremendous resources in 2009 and beyond to advance the following policy agenda.

Promote Economic Stimulus and Recovery

The Chamber's Agenda

•  Advocate for an economic stimulus package that, among other things, invests in infrastructure, provides targeted relief for fundamental economic sectors, temporarily reduces borrower and lending fees for Small Business Administration 7(a) and 504 lending programs, extends bonus depreciation and increased Section 179 expensing provisions, extends the net operating loss carryback period, adopts a temporary investment tax credit, and ensures an adequate safety net for the unemployed and families weathering difficult times.
   

What Chamber Members Say
"Any small business at this point is being touched by the credit crunch. Lines of credit used for payroll and numerous other things just aren't there anymore. This country is based on credit."
—Vanessa Baugh, Vanessa Fine Jewelry, Lakewood Ranch, FL

Rebuild America's Infrastructure

The Chamber's Agenda

•  Modernize and expand the nation's transportation, energy, water, and telecommunications infrastructure.
• Shorten the time that it takes projects to move from idea to completion.
• Fully fund and implement the federal funding programs for surface transportation, waterways and ports, and aviation, as well as for the technology and infrastructure programs contained in the Energy Policy Act of 2005.
• Urge states to protect dedicated transportation funds, rather than divert those funds to other programs.
   

What Chamber Members Say
"A strong infrastructure is good for business. We depend on it to grow our economy, and we are in danger of losing our competitive edge because of the current system. I don't like seeing the United States become a second-rate international power. We must act now, and tough choices need to be made."
—Stuart Graham, Skanska USA Inc., Parsippany, NJ

Secure America's Energy Future and Address Climate Change

The Chamber's Agenda

•  Increase domestic energy supplies from both traditional and renewable sources.
• Fully fund, implement, and coordinate the list of more than 130 clean energy technologies identified by Congress in previously passed legislation.
• Promote energy efficiency across all sectors.
• Modernize and protect energy infrastructure, including electricity grids and pipelines.
• Reduce overly burdensome regulations that discourage energy investment and streamline the permitting and appeals process for clean energy projects.
• Tackle global climate change in a way that maintains a level international playing field, promotes technology, and does not adversely affect the economy.
   

What Chamber Members Say
"The only reason oil has gone down is because demand has gone down. People have driven less, changed their driving habits. But that doesn't address the problem long term. We still need to drill more and look at energy alternatives such as wind, solar, and ocean tides. We need to produce more energy but also conserve."
—Ken Zangara, Zangara Dodge, Albuquerque, NM

Challenge Organized Labor's Anti-Jobs and Anti-Growth Agenda

The Chamber's Agenda

• Block card check legislation, which would ease union organizing rules and put employers at the mercy of federally appointed arbitrators who would dictate the terms and conditions of a first union contract.
• Fight a radical union agenda to rewrite the nation's employment laws. This agenda includes implementing an unjustified ergonomics regulation, mandating new paid sick leave requirements, expanding coverage of the Family and Medical Leave Act, increasing an array of penalties on employers in areas such as safety and discrimination laws, and making employers more vulnerable to meritless litigation.
   

What Chamber Members Say
"The Employee Free Choice Act is a bad idea in good economic times, and a catastrophic idea in these difficult times. Instead of giving employees more choice, it gives them less choice and would expose them to intense union organizing pressure tactics. It would also subject employers to unreasonable and unworkable contracts that could make them uncompetitive in their markets."
—Jim Wordsworth, J.R.'s Stockyards Inn, McLean, VA

Create a Competitive Tax System and Oppose Tax Increases

The Chamber's Agenda

• Prevent a complete rollback of the Bush tax cuts.
• Secure a long-term fix to the individual and corporate alternative minimum tax (AMT).
• Retool the corporate tax structure to help U.S. companies compete in the global marketplace.
• Repeal the 3% tax withholding law, which requires federal, state, and local governments to withhold 3% (as a prepayment on income taxes) from payments for goods and services starting in 2011.
   

What Chamber Members Say
"We want to see the tax extenders that are due to expire or that have expired to continue and some of them improved. Hopefully, estate tax rates will be reduced so as not to significantly impact small businesses and their families. Most small businesses are schedule C filers and therefore are impacted by the estate tax."
—Joy Turner, Jeffrey's Business Services, Raleigh, NC

Improve Health Care and Retirement Without a Government Takeover

The Chamber's Agenda

• Build on the nation's employer-based health care system, instead of moving to government-run health care.
• Give small businesses the same tax incentives for purchasing health care as larger companies and allow them to pool together.
• Permit small business owners to participate in their companies' benefits plan.
• Encourage widespread adoption of health information technology.
• Provide tax credits for employer-sponsored workplace wellness programs.
• Preserve the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), which protects companies from state mandates and regulations.
• Allow employers sufficient flexibility to fund their retirement programs during the financial crisis, block overly burdensome requirements for plan fee disclosure, and strengthen retirement savings programs.
   

What Chamber Members Say
"Health care for small businesses is a very important issue for us. It's so expensive. The Chamber has worked hard on this over the years, and there's hope now that maybe small businesses can get into larger purchasing groups."
—Roy and Edith Quick, Quick Tax and Accounting Service, St. Louis, MO

Educate a Superior Workforce and Reform Education

The Chamber's Agenda

• Overhaul federally funded training programs to make them nonduplicative and flexible, employer-driven, strategically oriented to the current and prospective job markets, and accountable under strict measurement of results.
• Strengthen and reauthorize No Child Left Behind and focus K-12 reform efforts on better teaching, more innovation, higher standards, and better data.
• At the higher education level, increase the number of graduates in science, engineering, technology, and math and provide more support for non-university sectors, including community colleges and private technical institutes.
• Enact comprehensive and balanced immigration reform.
• Expand temporary and permanent visa programs for highly skilled and seasonal workers.
   

What Chamber Members Say
"Education is what fuels our economy. If we want our workers to have the skill sets necessary to meet the demands of a competitive world, then we have to better educate all our young people and all people currently in the workforce. It's a lifelong learning strategy that we need to engage in."
—Kathy Havens Payne, State Farm Insurance, Bloomington, IL

End Lawsuit Abuse and Expand Legal Advocacy

The Chamber's Agenda

• Protect past legal reforms while blocking the trial lawyers' agenda to expand liability through federal legislation, including efforts to eliminate arbitration, expand consumer-related lawsuits, increase potential exposure to False Claims Act litigation, and chip away at federal preemption.
• Improve state legal climates by educating voters about key issues in state attorneys general and state Supreme Court races, while working with governors and legislators to enact legal reforms.
• Vigorously represent the business community's interests before the courts and regulatory agencies.
   

What Chamber Members Say
"I hear a lot about legal problems in my profession. The expense of lawsuit abuse causes problems for our global competitiveness. In the United States, anyone can sue anyone at any time. Lawsuits are about lawyers making money, and there's nothing to balance that. We need a fairer system."
—Tom Maides, Accu-Spec Home Inspections, Sevierville, TN

Advance Innovation by Protecting Intellectual Property

The Chamber's Agenda

• Strengthen enforcement of IP protections in the United States and fully fund and implement the Pro-IP Act.
• Introduce, pass, and enact a Customs and Border Protection Reauthorization bill.
• Improve and defend IP in key countries and in multilateral forums.
• Raise awareness and increase support for the value of innovation and IP.
   

What Chamber Members Say
"Engineers in countries that don't have strong laws against copyright infringement are able to duplicate and mass produce our products and sell them at a much lower cost. For an IT company, that can cause a lot of financial damage. I don't think the U.S. is putting enough emphasis on controlling this problem."
—Ernest Green, E&E Enterprises Global Inc., Hampton Roads, VA

Reform and Revitalize U.S. Capital Markets

The Chamber's Agenda

• Establish a modern and coherent financial services regulatory structure that protects investors and consumers, while ensuring that businesses and entrepreneurs have access to the capital necessary to grow, innovate, and create jobs.
• Sustain and enhance financial reporting, including moving toward global accounting and auditing standards.
• Ensure that corporate governance policies promote the long-term interests of all investors, rather than the short-term interests of minority shareholders.
   

What Chamber Members Say
"The structure of our capital markets and the regulatory system that supports it were created around the time of the last stock market crash. While we have done things to update those regulations, they've really been cobbled onto the existing regulatory structure, and it doesn't make sense anymore."
-Christine Edwards, Winston & Strawn LLP, Chicago, IL

Expand International Trade and Fight Isolationism

The Chamber's Agenda

• Create a level playing field for American workers and companies by approving trade agreements that tear down foreign barriers to U.S. exports, starting with the pending accords with Colombia, South Korea, and Panama.
• Make progress on the World Trade Organization's Doha Development Agenda trade negotiations, which would open overseas markets and create more jobs for U.S. workers.
• Double federal expenditures on export promotion to help small and medium-size businesses tap overseas markets.
   

What Chamber Members Say
"The more trade agreements we have, the more barriers we break down. Our company has seen first hand the benefits of trade, first with NAFTA, then with CAFTA. Five or six years ago, trade made up 0.5% percent of our business. Now, it makes up 5%. We'd like to do more. With the U.S. economy the way it is right now, foreign business is critical."
—Ron Collins, JCM Industries, Nash, TX