[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYDm_Gj-sac&w=560&h=315]
The National Organization for Marriage (NOM), America’s largest group dedicated to preserving traditional marriage and the faith communities that sustain it, announced it will lead an international “Dump Starbucks” protest of Starbucks Coffee Company to give voice to consumers around the world who support preserving marriage as the union of one man and one woman. Customers are invited to visit www.DumpStarbucks.com immediately to take action.
“Unlike our opponents, we do not target whole companies for the actions of an individual business executive in that company,” said Brian Brown, NOM’s president. “But Starbucks has taken a corporate position in support of redefining marriage for all of society. We will not tolerate an international company attempting to force its misguided values on citizens. The majority of Americans and virtually every consumer in some countries in which Starbucks operates believe that marriage is between one man and one woman. They will not be pleased to learn that their money is being used to advance gay marriage in society.”
The new protest campaign was announced after the annual Starbucks shareholders meeting today in Seattle, where NOM spokesmen queried the board on its new policies promoting gay marriage and demanded protection against discrimination for employees, vendors and customers who disagree.
“We respect the important role of businesses in providing goods, services and jobs, and that people of diverse moral views build great companies working together,” Brown said. “But Starbucks has corporately, as an organization, endorsed and helped pass gay marriage in the state of Washington. Its executive vice president of partner resources has stated that gay marriage “is aligned with Starbucks business practices and upholds our belief in the equal treatment of partners. It is core to who we are and what we value as a company.” Corporations should not take sides in a culture war that pits a company against half the American people, and nearly all its consumers in some international markets.”
NOM said it would mount a campaign to urge consumers to boycott Starbucks and contact the manager of their local Starbucks operation to complain about the corporation’s attempts to redefine marriage for all of society. The group will also launch an advertising campaign to inform consumers around the world about the company’s activities. Starbucks operates in 55 countries including many where same-sex marriage is strongly opposed.
“We are today announcing a sustained public campaign calling on Starbucks to stop waging war against marriage, and the views of more than half its worldwide customers. Starbucks should be in the business of offering all its diverse customers a great cup of coffee, not taking sides against the views of its customers, vendors, and employees around the world,” said Brown.
NOM will place ads throughout the United States, as well as in the Middle East and Southeast Asia, urging consumers to “Dump Starbucks” because purchasing a cup of Starbucks equals support for gay marriage. The “Dump Starbucks” campaign will ask consumers to join the campaign against Starbuck’s corporate irresponsibility.
“Starbucks may have been hoping that what happens in Seattle stays in Seattle, but we are going to make sure Starbucks customers, not only here but worldwide, know that drinking a cup of Starbucks coffee promotes gay marriage,” said Jonathan Baker, head of NOM’s Corporate Fairness Project and a Starbucks stockholder. “It’s ironic that even as Starbucks endorsed gay marriage here, its website on involvement in the Middle East claims the corporation does not, ‘support any political or religious cause.’ Lying to your customers is never a good business model,” Baker added.
To learn more or to sign the Dump Starbucks petition, go to http://www.dumpstarbucks.com.
Before dying at age 108, Frank Buckles, known as America’s last World War I veteran, said he wanted every WWI soldier that fought together to be honored together. During his visit to a memorial for WWI veterans who were residents of Washington D.C., Buckles was heartbroken by what he saw: a small, marble monument sitting dirty and stained at the end of a broken walkway, hidden by overgrown trees. At Buckles’ request, the World War I Memorial Foundation was formed to restore the memorial and rededicate it to all WWI veterans. Restoration efforts began in late 2010, but, upon completion, the city of Washington, D.C. withdrew its support for rededicating the memorial. Now there is an effort in Congress to build a privately funded national memorial honoring all WWI veterans on the Mall, where it would be accessible to the 25 million people who visit it each year. 116,000 American soldiers died in World War I, outnumbering the combined total of those killed in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. (Liberty Watch, March 22, 2012)
Watch a video below about the efforts to restore this veteran memorial.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnDX-D-jlxs&w=560&h=315]
On Tuesday, the U.S. House of Representatives approved the Senate-amended version of Jump-Start Our Business Start-ups Act (H.R. 3606 or “JOBS” Act) by a margin of 380-41, addressing one of NSBA’s top priority issues. The bill, which will ease securities regulations on small businesses making it much easier for them to raise capital through public capital markets, will now head to the President’s desk to be signed into law.
The bill originally passed the House along a wide bipartisan basis (390-23) and was then approved with amendments by the Senate last week, also on a bipartisan basis (73-26.) Prior to passage in the Senate, however, an amendment offered by Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and supported by Sens. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), Mary Landrieu (D-La.) and Scott Brown (R-Mass.), among others, was adopted 64-35, . This so-called “crowdfunding” amendment (S.Amdt. 1884), will insert the Senate’s version of crowdfunding legislation into the bill, and among other things, require crowdfunding intermediaries to register with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The original House-passed version of H.R. 3606 did not contain such language.
This bill was also supported by the administration.
This pro-growth, NSBA-supported legislation will positively transform the ability of small businesses to raise capital and help alleviate the disproportionate burden of compliance placed on small firms.
According to Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger, the United Nations Human Rights Council is number one opponent of Israel. By implication, this makes the UN a most anti-semitic institutions in the world. The following is the indictment proposed by Ambassador Ettinger.
On Friday, the HRC will conclude a month long deliberation by submitting four more resolutions condemning Israel.
The HRC heard testimony from a representative of the Assad regime, in formulating one of the resolutions, which denounces Israel for, alleged, violations of human rights on the Golan Heights. At the same time, the Assad regime has already murdered 8,000 Syrian dissidents and rebels, causing tens of thousands of refugees, some seeking asylum in Israel’s Golan Heights.
The HRC was privy to testimonies from Palestinian representatives, while an increasing number of Palestinians attempt to relocate to Jerusalem, in order to avoid the ruthless rule of the Palestinian Authority. The HRC never discussed intra-Palestinian violence, which has caused substantially more fatalities than those produced during Israel’s confrontation with Palestinian terrorism. It failed to act against the PLO/Hamas-led hate-education, brainwashing Palestinian children to become suicide bombers; rewarding Palestinian mothers for raising suicide bombers; executing rival Palestinians by throwing them off high-rise buildings; spraying them with bullets from the waist down; torturing, maiming and executing Palestinian opponents; abusing Palestinian civilians as human shields; physically abusing critical Palestinian journalists; suppressing Palestinian civil liberties; and systematically and deliberately targeting Israeli civilians for terrorism, missile launching and mortar shelling.
The HRC welcomed a report by Professor Richard Falk – who accused the US Administration for complicity and cover up in the September 11terrorism – on “the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967.” Prof. Falk – a Hamas sympathizer, justifying suicide bombing as a legitimate struggle – was appointed in 2008 to a six-year term as UN Special Rapporteur. Falk succeeded Professor John Dugard, who shares his worldview.
The HRC is assisted by an advisory committee, chaired by Morocco’s Halima Warzazi, who, in 1988, blocked a UN initiative to condemn Saddam Hussein’s chemical warfare against Iraq’s Kurds. The vice-chair is Switzerland’s Jean Ziegler, who co-established the “Qaddafi International Prize for Human Rights” and authored books accusing the USA of being responsible for global malaise. Another advisor is Nicaragua’s Miguel D’Escoto Brockman, former President of the UN General Assembly, an admirer of Ahmadinejad, a defender of Omar al-Bashir, Sudan’s president indicted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity, a friend of Fidel Castro and self-hating Americans such as Ramsey Clark and Noam Chomsky.
Since June 2007, Israel has been the only country to be listed on the HRC’s permanent agenda. Out of the ten permanent items on the HRC agenda, eight are organizational and procedural, one deals with global human rights and “item seven” – “the human rights situation in Palestine and other occupied Arab territories” – is the only one that is country-specific. The outcome of the investigation is prejudged, not subject to review. Israel – the only Middle Eastern democracy – is the only UN member to be ostracized annually, while its enemies are exempt from scrutiny.
According to former US Ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, “there are permanent members of the Security Council and non-permanent members, but Israel is the only permanent non-member.”
80% of all 2010 UN resolutions criticizing specific countries for human rights violations were directed at Israel. Only six other UN members faced human rights criticism at all, one of which was the United States. The HRC subjected the USA to harsh criticism – by Venezuela, Cuba, North Korea, Iran and Russia – for, supposed, human rights violations. The HRC criticized the elimination of Bin-Laden and Israel’s defense against PLO, Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists.
Simultaneously, the HRC has ignored Islamic terrorism, which has afflicted Asia, Africa, Europe and the USA. No emergency sessions and inquiries were held and no resolutions were adopted.
55% of the HRC members are Muslim countries, which contribute little to the UN budget, but dominate policy-making. The HRC is formally the guardian of human rights, but its members – e.g., Libya, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Cuba, China, Kyrgyzstan, Uganda, Djibouti, Senegal, Mauritania, Malaysia, Russia and China – deny their peoples fundamental civil liberties.
Of course, Arab ethnicity originates from the same ancient gene pool as the Jews. Although discrimination against Arabs is usually called Islamaphobia or injustice to Muslims or prejudice against Arabs, anti-Semiticism has been associated historically with the Jews. Because Jews make up a majority Israel’s population, the best label for the anti-Israel stance of the United Nations is anti-Semiticism.
Is U.N. anti-semiticsm to be explained merely as the result of a majority of Muslim nations represented on the UN Security Council? Another factor may be that Israel has yet to bow to the Arab/Muslim demand to submit to their rule of all Palestine or get out of the land. The two-state solution seems a useful tool to that end. Why else would Israel’s previous efforts to give back the land in accordance with UN Resolutions 181 & 242 have been thrown in the dust by Palestinian and Arab leaders when Israel made its reasonable demands to ensure the safety and prosperity of its citizens?
By Timothy Herrmann and Stefano Gennarini, J.D.
(NEW YORK C-FAM) Negotiations for a final document at the UN Commission on the Status of Women were supposed to end more than a week ago. However, they dragged on for another several days and resulted in a stinging defeat for the Obama administration and anger on the part of the developing world.
The US was trying to impose its sexual and reproductive rights agenda and in a dramatic showdown, delegations scuttled a final document rather than accept the US proposal.
Delegations openly resented the US emphasis on sexual and reproductive rights, and were particularly offended at being strong-armed by the US during negotiations for the resolution on maternal mortality. However, the US was able to push that resolution through without toning down their sexual and reproductive rights emphasis.
In the maternal mortality resolution, the US delegation insisted on new language that delegations feared could advance a right to abortion. Delegates were also concerned about references to “age appropriate sexual education” that did not acknowledge the role of parents, as well as dubious references to “gender.”
Negotiations on the final document, called “agreed conclusions,” were extended a week longer than expected because consensus could not be reached. Delegations carried negotiations well into the early hours of last Thursday, when the commission concluded its session, but the US would not budge, causing the negotiations to fail.
Michelle Bachelette, the head of UN Women, spoke to the delegates at the closing of CSW. She was disappointed by the commission’s “inability to reach consensus.” Several delegations voiced their frustration with the ideological rigidity of the US and other delegations in the reproductive rights camp.
The delegate from Zimbabwe, speaking for the African Group, complained about the position of “only one delegation” that had caused the process to falter. She also clarified that the African Group believed the use of the word “gender” referred to male and female, as outlined in previous international documents, and emphasized the sovereign prerogative of African nations to do so.
The Iranian delegation made a statement lamenting that a “tender bridge (consensus) collapsed last night at around 1:00am…only because of the intransigence, hardball playing and lack of flexibility on the part of one side of the room over issues that were not germane to the text.” Iran reproached these parties for coming to the negotiating table with “a mindset of achieving all they want, with no flexibility.”
On the opposite side of the negotiating table was the ambassador from Norway, who bluntly criticized nations for not abandoning “moral values” or accepting radical versions of gender equality: “[W]e have seen how moral values have been evoked to deprive women of their human rights, their opportunities – and ultimately, for some – their lives! This is the real moral hazard of our time!” She later added that “Many will have to let go of some traditional convictions, also when they are based on religious belief or culture…That’s what’s called development.”
Timothy Hermann is a U.N. Representative of the Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute (C-FAM) and Stefano Gennarini is writer for C-FAM as well. The above new article first appeared in Friday Fax, an internet report published weekly by C-FAM, a New York and Washington DC-based research institute (http://www.c-fam.org/). This article appears with permission.”
By Cameron Smith
In J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, the protagonist is charged with destroying a ring of immense power. Throughout the novel, characters with the best and worst of intentions strive to possess and thereby control the power of the ring. The more they use that power, the more warped and twisted they become.
While The Lord of the Rings has made its way onto summer reading lists for generations, this work of fiction bears a strong resemblance to what Americans have come to expect of their federal and state governments.
The power of government is unparalleled in America. Combined state and federal government expenditures account for 35.4% of America’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Government’s spending influence is augmented by expansive regulation and social mandates.
In their zeal to wield such power, even for the noblest of ends, many American politicians have expanded government’s reach even further. Because the cost of securing control of government grows proportionally to government’s size, politicians who possess the power of government face the temptation to use it in a manner to perpetuate that control.
According to a recent Rasmussen report, almost 40% of Americans believe that the United States engages in crony capitalism where business success depends largely on favorable treatment from the government. Businesses benefitting from such practices have strong incentives to support “friendly” politicians when they come up for reelection. When the government’s role in the economy and society is reduced, so are the opportunities for cronyism.
But the struggle to reduce government’s role has been largely abandoned. The most aggressive political ideas for curtailing the size of government in Washington suggest “controlling” spending at about 18% of GDP. According to a Real Clear Markets article by Dean Kalahar, “for the first 130 years of [America’s] existence, federal spending as a percentage of GDP averaged around 2.5%.”
Instead of reining in government, political characters continue to wrangle over the “correct” way to swing the cudgel of American government.
America’s founding fathers recognized the appeal of expansive government power and the dangers associated with it. As a result, they instituted constitutional limits on the accumulation of that power. But they also knew the system would only succeed so long as it had the consent and active support of the people it governed. When asked at the close of the Constitutional Convention what the founding fathers had produced, Benjamin Franklin responded, “A Republic, if you can keep it!”
Regrettably, Americans have not kept the Republic because they have failed to demand America’s founding principle of limited government be maintained. Unless America elects men and women willing to set aside the ring of government power and enforce the Constitution, government will be, as Barry Goldwater noted, a “monolith of power…bounded only by the will of those who sit in high places.”
Tolkien probably could not have said it any better.
Cameron Smith is General Counsel and Policy Director for the Alabama Policy Institute, a non-partisan, non-profit research and education organization dedicated to the preservation of free markets, limited government and strong families, which are indispensable to a prosperous society.
Posted in politics
Tagged American predicament, government, J.R.R. Tolkien, politics, power, The Lord of the Rings
By Daniel Downs
The Supreme Court will soon hear arguments about the constitutionality of Obamacare. In many ways, the Court will decide the future of American liberty. The Justices will determine whether federal bureaucrats can dictate the purchase of consumer services and goods. The Court will also determine whether Congress and the President can continue increasing government programs and ever-increasing debt burden on American workers, business, investors, and families. In a recent program, Glen Beck compared the number of new agencies created by FDR’s New Deal to the astronomical increase of federal agencies created under Obamacare (see Beck’s video). Liberty Legal Foundation is challenging this issue and related tax code and debt escalation that will incur to the American people. More importantly, the Foundation will attempt to convince the Supreme Court to overturn the source of the problem. That problem is Wickard v Filburn that essentially handed Congress unfettered powers to enlarge federal authority over all aspects of our individual and corporate lives under the Commerce Clause as well as to ever increase the national debt.
As you can see in the chart below, the Wickard ruling opened the floodgates to federal regulations, new federal agencies, astronomical increases of new federal tax codes, federal spending, and federal debt.
The options to force Congress to limit its continued bureaucratic growth are few. One is get Congress to pass law regulating its own creation of debt producing regulations. However, the long debated balance budget legislation and tax reform along the lines of the Fair Tax or flat tax proposal have consistently been voted down. Even if Congress forced itself to balance the budget, its unaccountable growth of power and spending would merely be slowed. Congress still would not have to seek the approval of the citizens its members supposedly represent, which leads to the unlikely passage of an amendment to the Constitution to make Congress seek voter approval for debt increasing legislation. The best solution to reigning in Congress’s seemingly uncontrollable efforts to regulate our daily lives and spending too much of our money is to change how the Congress, the Executive branch and the Court has interpreted the Commerce Clause.
Let’s hope and pray that the argument to be presented by Liberty Legal Foundation lawyers convince the Supreme Court to overturn Wickard.
To learn more about Liberty Legal Foundation’s suit against Obamacare, go to http://libertylegalfoundation.org.
By John W. Whitehead
With less than eight months to go before the next presidential election, political chatter among the candidates is ramping up and serious political discourse is declining. All the while, the corrupt government machine is taking advantage of a populace distracted by the political theater to advance agendas that are completely at odds with the nation’s fiscal, legislative and constitutional priorities. Indeed, the process of voting and electing a new president has become little more than an expensive, sophisticated ruse designed to deceive us into thinking we actually have a say in what happens in our government. However, the sad fact is that the United States government has ballooned into an overreaching, out-of-control bureaucracy accountable to no one in particular—not Congress or the president and least of all the taxpayers.
Thus, while the candidates mug for the cameras, American taxpayers are being taken to the cleaners—a different kind of mugging, altogether—by government officials eager to placate their corporate benefactors. While the surveillance state is slowly being erected around us, our civil liberties are systemically being dismantled. While our government wages war after endless war abroad, the war on the American people—fought with sound cannons, tasers and drones—is entering its early stages. And while the partisan rancor over who will occupy the White House becomes more toxic with each passing day, the elephant in the room—what no one is talking about—is the fact that it doesn’t really matter who gets elected, because no matter how often we change out the resident of the Oval Office, the immense, intractable, implacable, bureaucratic colossus that is our federal government remains entrenched.
For a start, consider national defense spending, which enriches the military-industrial complex to the tune of $740 billion and routinely falls prey to corruption and mismanagement. Who could forget the ten C-17 cargo planes purchased by Congress at the urging of the defense industry for a whopping $2.4 billion, despite the fact that the Pentagon insisted it didn’t need them? Incredibly, although the U.S. constitutes only 5% of the world’s population, America boasts almost 50% of the world’s total military expenditure, spending more on the military than the next 19 biggest spending nations combined. In fact, the Pentagon spends more on war than all 50 states combined spend on health, education, welfare, and safety.
Then there’s the $4 trillion War on Terror, which has seen at least $31 billion (and as much as $60 billion or more) lost to waste and fraud by military contractors and other government officials. A classic example of this was the $300 million diesel power plant that was built in Afghanistan despite the fact that it wouldn’t be used regularly “because its fuel cost more than the Afghan government could afford to run it regularly.” Or the $4 million paid to Afghan contractors for paving a 17.5-mile road in Ghazni province, which only resulted in 2/3 of a mile of road being paved.
Our expanding military empire is bleeding the country dry at a rate of more than $15 billion a month (or $20 million an hour)—and that’s just what the government spends on foreign wars. That does not include the cost of maintaining and staffing the 1000-plus U.S. military bases spread around the globe. A government audit found that defense contractor Boeing has been massively overcharging taxpayers for mundane parts, resulting in tens of millions of dollars in overspending.
Pork barrel spending (the earmarking of outrageous sums of money in federal contracting in return for personal gain and campaign contributions) borders on the ludicrous. In 2010, for instance, the federal government gave the University of California at Santa Cruz $615,000 to digitize Grateful Dead memorabilia. Then there was the $246 million tax break for Hollywood movie producers to buy motion picture film. Most recently, an $11 million federal grant intended to help 400 low-income people in the Detroit area secure employment only ended up helping two people.
Government contracts for building privatized prison complexes have also become a lucrative business in recent years—what one journalist referred to as “caging humans for profit.” Immigrant detention centers are especially viewed as future goldmines for savvy investors. For example, GEO Group Inc. was paid $32 million to build a detention center for low-risk inmates in Karnes City, Texas. The prison boasts a salad bar, a library with Internet access, cable TV, an indoor gym with basketball courts, and soccer fields. GEO Group will also rake in roughly $15 million a year for running the prison. The detainees being held indefinitely at Guantanamo Bay just received a $750,000 soccer field to relieve their boredom, thanks to American taxpayers.
And then there’s the generally indulgent and overall excessive spending that goes along with a government lacking in oversight or accountability. A case in point, at the end of the Bush administration, government officials were still getting official portraits painted for upwards of $30,000. Donald Rumsfeld even got two separate portraits for his two stints as Secretary of Defense. State dinners at the White House, as lavish as they come, are estimated to run as high as half a million dollars per event. The invitations for these dinners are engraved, gold-embossed and hand-addressed by calligraphers. Wine served at these dinners has been estimated to cost taxpayers between $115-$399 per bottle. Not surprisingly, the White House refuses to disclose the price tag for these extravagant affairs.
This brings me back to the topic at hand—namely, that nothing taking place on Election Day or in the days leading up to it will limit or restrain this out-of-control bureaucracy or alleviate the suffering of the American people. What we are being treated to right now is a stage show, full of sound and fury, but in the end it is nothing more than well-choreographed entertainment for a populace struggling to survive.
Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. He can be contacted at johnw@rutherford.org. Information about the Institute is available at www.rutherford.org.
Posted in politics
Tagged bread-and-circus, equals empire, police state, unlimited spending, war
The National Small Business Association applauded the Senate for bipartisan passage (73-26) of the JOBS Act late last week. Although not identical to the House-passed version, the amended Senate bill will, without question, positively transform the ability of small businesses to raise capital and help companies generate sustainable economic growth and jobs.
“There is a direct correlation between job growth and small-business owners’ ability to garner financing,” stated NSBA President and CEO Todd McCracken. “This is the right bill at the right time, and we applaud the Senate for moving beyond partisan politics to pass this very important legislation.
Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council (SBE Council) president & CEO Karen Kerrigan issued the following statement upon U.S. Senate passage of the JOBS Act:
“Startups and high-potential businesses have been plagued by a capital chasm since the financial crises, and the JOBS Act offers several reforms to help entrepreneurial firms at their various stages of growth and development. We would prefer that the crowdfunding provision be less onerous and complex, and feel the Securities and Exchange Commission has been given to much rein from a regulatory perspective (Reed amendment). Still, the Merkley amendment to H.R. 3606 was an improved measure from the original Senate bills. We applaud President Obama for his support of this initiative, as well as the bipartisan collaboration in Congress that made this legislation possible,” said Kerrigan.
According to Kerrigan, the final product will be a powerful package with significant benefits for the small business community. Other reforms contained within the JOBS Act will help small businesses access and accelerate their growth in the public markets. Inflexible and costly rules impeding the growth of promising enterprises are properly addressed in H.R. 3606, allowing these firms to more efficiently scale up while freeing up more resources for investment and job creation.
“A strong entrepreneurial ecosystem depends on access to capital. Freeing up new sources of capital – as the JOBS Act will do – will strengthen our nation’s small business sector, and add to their job creating capacity,” added Kerrigan.
Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) said the U.S. House would vote on the Senate amended package early next week.
However, prior to the Senate vote, Kerrigan stated opposition to both the Reed and Merkley amendments for the following reasons:
“The Reed Amendment (#1931) proposes a significant policy change that will burden small businesses with new and costly Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) registration and compliance burdens. The intent of H.R. 3606 is to help jumpstart and encourage entrepreneurship, small business growth and investment – not drive up their costs. The Reed Amendment eviscerates Section 601 of the legislation for community banks, which means they would be deprived of the opportunity to raise capital. That means less lending to the communities and small businesses they serve.
“The Merkley Amendment (#1884) unnecessarily restricts the potential of crowdfund investing. The Amendment imposes excessive costs and burdens on small issuers, provides for unfettered regulatory activity by the SEC, and is too restrictive and complex when it comes to setting and defining investment limits. For example, audit requirements in the Amendment represent a significant barrier to entry (a “crowdfunding tax”) that many promising and eligible small businesses will not be able to afford. Why require an audit for the smallest of firms when a CPA review would do? With respect to SEC oversight, the Amendment goes overboard in granting the agency profound authority. The potential for regulatory intrusiveness is a major concern, particularly as the SEC has not demonstrated a consistent record of action in responding to the concerns of small businesses. SBE Council believes the $1 million cap in the Amendment is too low, and the caps on individuals are far too complex.”
If the amended JOBS bill is passed by the House, it is still expected more small businesses and start-ups will get the adequate funding they need, more jobs will be created, and a healthier pro-business environment will be created.
