On October 21, the President announced new measures that he claims will be part of an ongoing effort to help small businesses access credit and create jobs.   At the heart of the proposal is to have the government make more loans available to our small businesses. 

The three main components include: take further steps to provide small businesses with access to credit by supporting community bank lending through the Financial Stability Plan; seek legislation to increase maximum SBA loan sizes to allow more businesses to access the credit they need; and convening a Treasury-SBA Small Business Lending Conference to work with regulators, lenders and Congress to ensure credit is available to small business.  Do we really need more conversations on the issue?  Let’s get something done.

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This week the U.S. House of Representatives passed House Resolution 768, expressing support for the designation of the month of October as “National Work and Family Month.”  It is a simple resolution that does a few good things:

• Recognizes the importance of balancing work and family to job productivity and healthy families;
• Recognizes that an important job characteristic is a work schedule that allows employees to spend time with families;
• Supports the goals and ideals of `National Work and Family Month’, and urges public officials, employers, employees, and the general public to work together to achieve more balance between work and family; and
• Requests that the President issue a proclamation calling upon the people of the United States to observe `National Work and Family Month’ with appropriate ceremonies and activities.

Nearly everyone understands that our work force is dramatically different than it was decades ago.  The findings included in the House Resolution also make the point that “85 percent of United States wage and salaried workers have immediate, day-to-day family responsibilities outside their jobs and job flexibility allows parents to be more involved in their children’s lives.”

Unfortunately House Resolutions have little teeth – they are good talking points and certainly help to bring attention to important issues.  But Congress needs to take this resolution one step further and actually support and pass policies that back up these ideas, without imposing new mandates on our businesses.

For one, we need more flexible work arrangements – as the Resolution suggests.  Many families struggle to balance work and family, making sure they have enough time off to care for a sick child or attend a soccer game.  We need to give private sector hourly employees the option to take time off in lieu of overtime wages, a benefit that our federal government employees have enjoyed for three decades. 

Working families, men and women, will continue to re-shape and re-define our workforce.  We need to make sure that our laws can keep up with the changes.  What do you think?

There’s good news on the economic front, according to the Women Presidents’ Organization’s annual survey.  The survey reveals that 67% of companies have increased or maintained employee salaries during this recession.   Results from the surveyed membership (membership is women driven) indicate 55% of women presidents and CEOs of multi-million dollar companies have maintained or grown their employee base.  Despite the economic downturn, 82% of these CEOs and presidents are optimistic about their company’s performance for 2010.

This year has produced some compelling numbers in financial performance:

• 31% of companies have grown and 21% are stable and have neutral performance. 
• 54% have made their business environmental friendly.
• 35% are interested in making their business environmental friendly.

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There is a new Fortune 500 company in Washington, DC and it is called the federal government. 

October 3^rd marked the one-year anniversary of the largest government bailout in U.S. history.  The passage of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) gave our government (and taxpayers) a majority ownership stake in most of our financial services companies.  This is one anniversary we shouldn’t be excited to celebrate.

In the year since the TARP was launched, things have gone from bad to worse.  In the last nine months we have watched as the federal government took over General Motors; passed a “stimulus” bill that did little to stimulate small business or our economy; transformed itself into a used car salesman with the Cash for Clunkers program; and it is now working around the clock to take over our health care system.

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