FSM: Cap and trade bill will wreck U.S. economy

Former energy executive Claiborne Deming told a Friday lunch gathering of about 100 Fort Smith area business and civic leaders that the proposed federal cap and trade bill is “extraordinarily draconian,” will destroy the U.S. economy, and it was “hijacked” by environmental extremists in the Democrat Party. And those were the kind things he had to say.

The American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, commonly referred to the cap and trade bill and the Waxman-Markey bill, was approved by the U.S House of Representatives on June 26 on a 219-212 vote. U.S. Rep. Vic Snyder, D-Little Rock, was the only member of Arkansas’ delegation in the House to vote for the bill. It is now on the Senate calendar.

Among its numerous provisions, the proposed bill establishes a national energy production standard requiring 20% of retail electric sales to come from combined renewable energy and energy efficiency by 2020. The bill also establishes greenhouse cap and trade provisions that cover 85% of the overall economy, including electricity producers, oil refineries, natural gas suppliers, and energy-intensive industries like iron, steel, cement and paper manufacturers, according to the filing by Entergy Arkansas.

Read the full article at The City Wire

Small business owners react to Obama Health Care Bill

Small business owners employee about 80% of the population!
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I am a restaurant owner, and I have had this restaurant for over 16 year. I have over 10 employees currently, some part-time, and some full time. It is not I don’t want to provide health care for my employee, I just can not afford. Obama’s health care plan will put me out of business. My business just does not have extra money pay for employees health care. With the minimum wage increase to $7.25, my business is going to under a lot of pressure. I really don’t know what else to do, I already work over 70 hour a week try to save some labor cost. I just want to Obama give our small business break. All small business owner work really hard to try to stay in business. I know a lot of small business owner don’t even have insurance for themselves.

National health plan will kill business.

Shirley

I work for a major health insurance company. We have already felt the effects of the economy on our company and are afraid we will not survive at all with Obamacare. We have a hiring freeze on right now. Many contractors that we use for projects have not had their contracts renewed. Many growth projects have been put on hold. Many fears layoffs will come. They have already told us they are looking at our retirement benefits and to expect change. Is this the change Obama promised? If we get national health care, this will probably force our health insurance company out of the private sector. Then I guess we won’t have to worry about the change in our retirement benefits because we also won’t have a job anymore. Thousands more people from a health insurance company, to boot, will be needing health insurance and a job. Yes, this is change we can believe in.

Linda

For us it is not a matter of hire/fire, but very much a matter of possibly dumping the health insurance we have for our managers (paid 100% by our company) because there’s no way we can afford to cover our p/t employees too. If coverage is mandated for everyone in the company we are better off taking the 8% payroll penalty, thus dumping everyone, including top brass (me,too) into the public health system. After seeing the rules today such as must pay 72% of employee’s cost AND pay 64% of dependent costs, it took me less than five minutes to do the math on that one.

Chris

I am President of a small (250 employees) directional drilling company. We are the embodiment of the American dream. Starting with seven employees in 2003 we worked hard and now provide good paying jobs and a nice benefit package, including health care for all of our 250 employees. Our future is in jeopardy because of the one two punch of Cap and Trade and Government Health Care reform. If corporate taxes are increased to pay for this anvil around our necks then I doubt that we will be able to survive much less compete with the giants in our industry (Halliburton, Schlumberger, Baker Hughes). We have already reduced salaries, furloughed over 30 employees and are considering reducing the benefits we provide. Stimulus? What’s that? Obama is no friend to small business. The only decent jobs that will be left if Congress rolls over are government jobs. Those will be short lived because hard working schmucks like me won’t be feeding the pigs at the trough.

Mike

My partner and I are consultant engineers in the business jet aviation industry. As luxury items go in a recession, the current economy has taken a big hit on our business. Two of our employees have left our company and we have not replaced them. Instead, we use part-time contractors on an as needed basis. With that said, 2 full time employees could be hired. However, we will not be hiring anyone near term with the current economy, threat from Obamacare, and the threat of increase income taxes. We are going to wait to evaluate the economic outlook and additional government cost burden before making any new investment decisions.

David

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