(WASHINGTON) House Small Business Committee Chairman Don Manzullo (R-IL) today said tax relief, health care affordability, liability reform, and regulatory relief top the list of items America’s small businesses want Congress to address in 2005.

Manzullo, who held a full committee hearing today to discuss the top small business legislative priorities, said America’s 25 million small employers need Congress’ help in these areas to continue to expand and provide jobs for needy Americans.

“Our small businesses provide work for the majority of Americans and create 70 percent of all new jobs each year,” Manzullo said. “They need freedom from excessive taxation, surging health care costs, burdensome regulations and abusive lawsuits to continue to provide opportunities for working Americans.”

During the hearing, Manzullo and his colleagues discussed H. Res. 22, legislation that expresses the Sense of the House that American small businesses are entitled to a Small Business Bill of Rights. H. Res. 22, sponsored by Rep. Ric Keller (R-FL), states that America’s small employers should have:

• The right to join together to purchase affordable health insurance for small business employees, who make up a large portion of the millions of Americans without health care coverage.
  
  
• The right to tax laws that allow family-owned small businesses to survive over several generations and offer them incentives to grow.
  
  
• The right to be free from frivolous lawsuits which harm law-abiding small businesses and prevent them from creating new jobs.
  
  
• The right to be free of unnecessary, restrictive regulations and paperwork which waste the time and energy of small businesses while hurting production and preventing job creation.
  

Credit: http://wwwc.house.gov/smbiz/press/asp_display_press_releases.asp?pressReleaseId=76

News Release

Small Business Committee Press Release
U.S. House of Representatives

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