Please feel free to choose any or all of the issues presented. After making your selection(s), please post the one question you would most like answered by candidates running for Federal office.
  • Tax Laws / Complexity
    25% (1731 Votes)
    25%
  • Healthcare
    18% (1265 Votes)
    18%
  • Access to Capital
    10% (678 Votes)
    10%
  • Government Contracts
    5% (360 Votes)
    5%
  • International Trade
    6% (386 Votes)
    6%
  • Disaster Planning & Recovery
    3% (201 Votes)
    3%
  • Federal Regulations
    14% (940 Votes)
    14%
  • Minimum Wage Requirements
    8% (581 Votes)
    8%
  • Climate Change
    5% (365 Votes)
    5%
  • Other
    6% (448 Votes)
    6%
  • 320 Comments 43k Views

    Answers (1-10)

    As old as I am, I was raised that government operates from small business, to city, to county, to state and then federal. Not the other way around (or down). Small Business has to take care of itself, just as an individual - so, we take of ourselves, for the governments truly won't for they don't know how to operate a business - that's why it is called government.
    Make sense?
    Business from Carlsbad, CA
    Answered on Jul 26th, 2019
    There are several issues that I would like to hear being addressed such as:

            Infrastructure ~ (highways, bridges, waterways, gas lines ` all way past due for repair and upkeep)
            Affordable living ~ (wages increases not matching to the cost of living increases such as rents, medical/pharma, higher education, energy.  There are homeless on the street and some are working and can't afford a roof)
            Senior care ~ again affordability of the basics. Some seniors lost their nest egg due to high medical, scams by crooks and bankers, disability,  disasters/emergencies etc  so all they have is Social Security, they are also increasing in homelessness and suicides/depression - what do they do with no family and are having major mental challenges due to Dementia and Alzheimer's how will they survive?)
            Student debt ~ the more Millennials and Generation Z are weighed down by debt the less our economy will be stimulated - less American home buyers.
            Affordable Medical - Lower medication and procedure cost
            Better care for our vets
            Climate Change - It is real

    These things, if corrected and addressed with action, will make America Great again.
    What are your plans in addressing these National issues?
    Why are you not supporting federal laws designed to regulate immigration and closing loopholes in such laws? The tax burden of everyone on this forum is directly impacted to support not a few, but millions of illegal immigrants. And this is from a person who legally immigrated to the US, who went through the process for eight years, to become a proud citizen. 
    abolish political correctness. Preserve constitutional rights for US Citizens in the country legally.  Mandate fealty to the US Constitution and the American way of life or deport agitators like AOC.  I don’t believe we can classify ourselves as a republic today. Ruling powers have all but secured our nation as an unlimited heriditary monarchy.
    Repeal the 16th Amendment which will get the government out of our personal lives financially.
    Repeal the 17th amendment so we can get our balance of power back.
    Teach all over the nation that inalienable rights come from God, not government.
    The overall cost of quality healthcare for a small business both to the company and the employee is out of control.
    It makes hiring and keeping qualified experienced people hard when an employee with a family to consider has to pay out almost 25% of their pay just to keep healthcare.
    The fact that small businesses have such a higher per person cost is crazy when compared to larger companies. I came from a large manufacturing company back into the construction industry and the cost of healthcare for myself and my employees across the board is at least 3 times the amount for the same coverage through the same company.
    I believe that allowing small businesses to group together in order to achieve a better group rate would be at the very least a small step to easing the healthcare burden.
    But in order to truly strive to correct the issue there should be a standard per person rate based on the coverage so that the individual rate is the same for small business as it is for big business. 

    Another issue we are going to see is the minimum wage increase. When/If the minimum wage is increased to $15/hr we are going to start seeing less opportunity for people joining the work force for the first time due to a lack of experience and/or a companies willingness to pay a higher rate for a untested workforce. The other side of the same coin is that due to the required rate increase we will start to see higher costs which could easily cause things like home ownership to become unattainable for some. The long and short of it is that with the wage increase we will see a cost of living increase which means in the long run someone who makes $8-$10/hr now will be no better off when they are making $15/hr because they will be paying that much more for the same products that they are using now. What we should be looking at is ways to make the cost of living less of a burden on lower income households and teaching people how to live within the means rater then living on credit. We as a society have grown to accustom to "charging it" instead of getting what we need based on what we have to spend. 
    We need to learn from history and understand that throwing money at a problem will not fix the problem, in fact it has a greater chance of making it worse.
    Educating someone to live a lifestyle that they can afford is going to put them in a better position then giving the a pay increase that they may not deserve. After that teach them to rise on their own merit through hard work and putting in the time is how we will make a sustainable society instead of an entitled one. 
    As a small business selling VoIP phone service there are new taxes added at least quarterly, if not more often as of late.  While I understand that our local governments likely need to make up for lost traditional phone service taxes (as more & more people & businesses switch to VoIP) it is really a problem for small businesses like mine.  Each new tax generally comes with a registration fee of $100 to $200 and the burden of assessing, collecting & remitting these taxes which most times amount to very little.  In some jurisdictions we may only have one or two customers.  These fees & the burden of the tax management put us in the red on those clients.  Often these taxes are established after the customer has been on board for months or more so there's no way to plan for it.  We've been advised by a prominent VoIP tax attorney that we should just not deal with it because the risk is very small but, that's not how we do business.  We sell telecommunication solutions with integrity & are currently working with the Department of Revenue in Washington & Oregon to hopefully find a better solution not only for ourselves but, for other small businesses like us.

    My question is What will you do to help small businesses?

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