Texas Insider Report: AUSTIN Texas Since the president passed the Tax Cuts & Jobs Relief Act which helped businesses all across the board theres been an increase ever since in our Small Business Optimism Index. Business owners are wanting to compensate their employees more expand their business more and put more back into the community. And you know what? The market drives that not government. Businesses want to invest back into their companies in the form of more & better benefits and with more pay NFIB Texas Director Annie Spilman tells the Texas Insider Radio Shows Jim Cardle.
But then on the other hand the City of Austin & other Texas Cities have been pressured by outside labor groups national labor unions whove said themselves and have already been bragging about it that to penetrate the south they need to make sure benchmark policies & ordinances are passed at the local level.
Regulations are just a tax on Small Businesses... It costs them 36 more to to implement a regulation that it does a larger business Spilman said.
If a small businessman has to adjust and cut back his employees work schedule because of Sick Paid Time just to keep the doors open thats a morale killer. Morale is everything to these employers and for a lot of our small businesses their employees are family. Thats why NFIB is a lead plaintiff in the lawsuit against Paid Sick Leave… and guess whos exempt from those regulations? Labor unions.
What we do is ballot our members and they actually tell us what were going to be working on at the Capitol. Were literally getting feedback directly from the small business owner on issues that range from taxes to regulatory reform and theyre telling us exactly what we need to be working on. We rely on our balloting system and its scientific.
Weve never seen our membership so upset and concerned as they are over this regulation and its because its so broad its so vague its like a Gotchya policy thats really even worse than is being advertised. Small businesses dont have in-house lawyers or HR Departments. If they accidentally violate it and this is whats most egregious about it these cities will be able to subpoena the employers private records if just an allegation of violation is made.
Thats why were going to be dealing with it in the Texas Legislature where they want to pass some pre-emption legislation because its not within a citys jurisdiction to regulate private employers in the state over labor or employment matters said Spilman.
Small businesses in Texas employ over 4 million people and theyre creating 2-out-of-every-3 net new jobs. They represent about 98 of all businesses in Texas that have employees. So if you put a small business out of business that means those employees are not taking home a paycheck.
We represent independently owned and operated businesses throughout the state and nationally and in Texas weve got about 20000 small business owners and members. Nationally we represent about 300000. Our membership represents a cross-section of the economy which is why we share a healthy perspective with legislators -- we represent people in the manufacturing industry the construction industry retail the services industry you name it we represent it.
And the job never ends when youre a small business owner. When you do something to hurt a small business theyre the engines of the economy said Spilman.
A couple years ago as we polled our members the biggest problems & priorities were: Uncertainty Over Economic Conditions; Uncertainty Over Government Actions; and Concern about Unreasonable Government Regulations. Those things have always been out there hindering the small businesses owners in Texas and the nation frankly to the point that they couldnt hire they couldnt plan to increase wages all because these concerns were hanging over their head.
If you think about it moving forward when President Trump took office he immediately started to make changes at the Department of Labor the EPA he made some Executive Orders and passed the Tax Cuts Bill. So now what were seeing is that the forecasts look good. Business owners are starting to feel The economys starting to turn around I dont think this presidents going to over-regulate us. So they have confidence. Confidence breeds expansion said Spilman.
