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John McCain Is Senate’s Leading User of Senate Online Marketing
Sep 2nd
| Because McCain is mentioned all the time on this particular political blog on the Internet, which is also on the Twitter… |
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View full post on Home Wealth Project Riot!
Small Business Jobs Bill: Senate FAIL – Aug. 6, 2010
Aug 6th
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The legislative window to pass the Small Business Jobs Bill is closing quickly. The bill is log jammed in the Senate despite strong appeals from both President Obama… |
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View full post on Home Wealth Project Riot!
Senate Passes Unemployment Benefits Extension
Jul 22nd
Image: billaday/Flickr
The Senate approved a $34 billion unemployment benefits extension yesterday. It applies to all people whose benefits ran out on June 2, but not to people who have already collected their full 99 weeks of unemployment. The Christian Science Monitor describes the extension:
Under the old law, individuals who used to have part-time jobs or took seasonal employment would see their benefit levels reduced when they went back on unemployment. Thus, it was not unusual for someone who had been receiving $500 a week to take a part-time job, and then when they returned to unemployment find that their benefit was now based on their temp salary. Under the new law, they will be able to keep their higher benefit. But this law is not retroactive.
(New benefits) will be retroactive to June 2, when the last extension expired. This means some 2.5 million people will get lump-sum checks. However, the checks will not be as large as they had been because the Senate stripped out the $25 per person that had been added as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
Those eligible for unemployment insurance can expect to receive their checks through the end of November. According to Judy Conti of the National Employment Law Project (NELP), depending on each state, people could expect to see their benefits paid in two to four weeks.
See their complete Q&A here.
Passing unemployment benefits through the election month of November seems like a no-brainer for the Obama administration, or any politician, for that matter.
The impressive span of unemployment benefits–nearly two years–happened because 45.5% of the country’s unemployed have been out of work for more than six months, according to another CS Monitor article. It’s worth noting that the vast minority of people get the full 99 weeks; most peoples’ benefits run out before that.
View full post on Business Pundit
New Act Introduced in Senate to Help Women Business Owners Get More Federal Contracts
Jul 4th
Women business owners’ access to federal contracts has long been a bone of contention. I blogged here earlier about the Women-Owned Small Business (WOSB) rule, proposed in March of this year, and how it would affect women’s access to federal contracts.
Now, further change is afoot. U.S. Senators Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) have introduced the Fairness in Women-Owned Small Business Contracting Act of 2010, bipartisan legislation to address deficiencies in the Small Business Administration’s (SBA) women-owned small business contracting program.
A meeting between representatives from the National Association of Women Business Owners (NAWBO) and Sen. Snowe’s office helped spur the new bill. “We appreciate Sen. Snowe’s quick response to our concerns, and look forward to working with her to move this bill forward,” says Kelly Scanlon, NAWBO national chair-elect and part of the NAWBO team that met with Sen. Snowe’s office.
“Simply put, women-owned small businesses have yet to receive their fair share of federal contracting dollars,” says Sen. Snowe, ranking member of the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship. “As the fastest-growing segment of our economy, women-owned small businesses will play a critical role in helping our nation recover from the current recession.”
The Fairness in Women-Owned Small Business Contracting Act of 2010 addresses two critical limitations of the WOSB 8(m) program’s Proposed Rule which didn’t confer sole-source award authority, and established dollar ceilings on contracts that qualify for the 8(m) program: a $5 million ceiling for manufacturing businesses and a $3 million ceiling for other goods and services.
The new Act enables government contracting officers to award federal contracts sole-source to WOSBs under similar conditions as sole source contracts are awarded to historically underutilized business zone (HUBZone) small businesses. (Contracting officers can currently award contracts without competition, under certain circumstances, to small businesses that are part of the SBA’s 8(a) program, service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses and HUBZone small businesses.)
The bill also removes the ceilings on the award amount so WOSBs can compete for federal contracts of any contract dollar amount, just like HUBZone, 8(a) and service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses.
“Women-owned small businesses will still face a disadvantage when compared to HUBZone, 8(a) and service-disabled veteran-owned businesses,” says Sen. Snowe. “Our legislation will help put women-owned firms on a level playing field with these other socio-economic groups to ensure their maximum participation in the federal contracting process.”
New Act Introduced in Senate to Help Women Business Owners Get More Federal Contracts
View full post on Small Business Trends
