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| Kirk Meets with SBAB in Peoria |
(IRN)-U.S. Senator Mark Kirk had his first meeting with his Small Business Advisory Board in Peoria. He says about thirty business-people will meet with him quarterly to discuss ways he can help them.
"I tasked the group at the end to also come forward with specific legislative or regulatory proposals that may not be terribly high profile and therefore have the chance for real bipartisan cooperation based on regional or industry or needs rather than the divide between Republicans and Democrats," Kirk said.
Kirk says about a third of the people there were definitely concerned about health care, as Senate Republicans are poised to try to repeal the law passed last year. Lawmakers in the House have already voted in favor of a repeal. One of the most contentious points of the health care law is something which has nothing to do with health care.
"And that is the requirement for every business in America to fill out federal paper work for purchases of over 600 dollars," Kirk said. "This is known at the 1099 rule. And I think the President has seen the writing on the wall. Indications are he will now reverse and support the repeal of the 1099 rule."
The board's chairman, Zach Hoffman, says the 1099 rule places a real burden on small business owners.
"For instance, one member owns eleven hardware stores," Hoffman said. "He would have loads of people who come in to do transactions over $600. And he does loads of transactions over $600 on the vendor's side. So just tracking all those, sending out the notices, getting it back, just the processing side to that is a pretty onerous regulatory load."
Kirk was also critical of how the recent tax hike in Illinois will affect business.
"Right now the only state in the union that is publicly raising taxes and not cutting spending is Illinois," Kirk said. "I worry that on top of the very public corruption we had with Gov. Ryan and Gov. Blagojevich, we now are being seen as a high tax, high cost state. How do you attract new businesses if that's your brand?"
(Source: Illinois Radio Network) |
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| 01 21 11 by Newsroom |
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