Senate Bill Hurts Construction

by the Small Business Owner

Under the new provisions in the Senate Healthcare Reform Bill, Senator Merkley (D-OR) singled out small construction firms for harsher treatment than any other industry. Most employers with fewer than 50 workers who don’t offer health coverage are exempt from fines and the new regulatory regime that applies to larger employers. The newly added provision aims at construction firms employing as few as five workers. They will be subject to health care coverage fines and regulatory requirements.

All construction firms (and only construction firms) with more than five employees will now face fines if they don’t offer health care benefits or if the benefits do no not meet a minimum requirement. Employers must cover 60 percent of the actuarial value of an employee’s premium. If an employee’s share of the premium exceeds 9.8 percent of their household income, then the employee can opt out of the employer provided coverage and receive government subsidies to help offset the costs. The employer can face penalties of $750 per full time employee if the coverage does not meet these requirements.

The construction industry has one of the largest unemployment rates and both residential and commercial contractors are desperately trying to stay afloat. Why punish small business? It’s all about Union control, which wants to put the small non-union shops out of business. Shame on Congress for manipulating our laws to satisfy the greed and the desire for power of Union leadership!

We've Lost Our Way

I think I finally get it. See, I was under the impression that our elected officials in Congress were supposed to be creating and modifying laws to keep this country safe and healthy, both physically and economically. I was clearly wrong.

It’s now apparent to me that the states within the Republic, we call the United States, have become nothing more than bureaucratic administrators for distributing the finances of the social welfare nation we call America. The Senate version of the Healthcare Reform bill, which was passed at 1:00am on 12/21/09, will go down in infamy as the moment in which it truly became obvious that this is all about money and not the welfare of the people.

The passing of this bill required many special deals. Here are just a few that we know about:

Sen. Snow’s (R-ME) vote allowed it to come out of committee, and in trade her home state of Maine will be receiving special financial treatment.

Sen. Nelson (D-NE) leveraged being the 60th vote to insure that Nebraska got more than their fair share of Medicaid.

Sen. Baucus (D-MT) has received special treatment for one small town’s health issues and an exemption on how Medicare will pay doctors and hospitals in his state. Only three other states received this exemption because those were the votes they needed.

Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) was able to acquire between $100M and $300M in extra aid for the state of Louisiana for her vote.

David Axelrod said it perfectly, “…the provisions benefiting specific states, like Nebraska, and favored constituencies were a natural part of the legislative process. “

So, we have moved from arguing points of law and the general welfare of the United States citizens to negotiating federal tax dollar distribution for the benefit of a small subset of the constituency. If that’s the case, I suggest that my home state of Florida stop sending lawyers to Washington. I think we should start sending car salesmen. If it’s all about getting the best deal then there is no one better at cutting you for a dollar than an experienced car guy. Also, let’s eliminate the suits, and the formalities, and run it like an auction. It will be Votes for dollars. That way we could save the citizens a lot of time and drama listening to rhetoric on issues that really don’t matter. Congress should love this auction idea, since it will allow them more time to campaign, write books, and go on world wind junkets for private contributors.

The real issue here is that the federal government has become the overlord of the states, and this is in direct contradiction to the U.S. Constitution. Most states look like welfare crack addicts waiting for their monthly check, so they can support their habit of too many social programs and too much bureaucratic waste.

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No Justice and No Reason

On November 29th, 2009, four Lakewood Police Department officers were gunned down in a coffee shop near Tacoma, WA. Often the act of a mad man is so heinous that it makes us want to point blame irrationally, but in this case there are people at fault and laws should be changed to ensure that this never happens again.

In 1990, Maurice Clemmons was convicted and sentenced to 108 years in prison. After serving 10 years, then Arkansas governor Huckabee commuted his sentence to 47 years. This allowed an Arkansas Parole Board to release him on parole in July of 2000.

In 2001, Clemmons, violated his parole by committing aggravated robbery and was convicted and sentenced to 10 years in prison. If you’ve lost track this should have him going back to jail to finish his 47 year term plus another 10 for his latest crime, but Arkansas judicial system ignored the parole violation and after only 4 years he was once again paroled.

He moved to Washington and placed under the supervision of the Washington State Department of Corrections. In May of 2009, there was a bench warrant issued when he escaped police after having raped his 12 year old female relative. In July, he was finally arrested. Arkansas did not request extradition which would have put him behind bars for 57 years. On November 23, 2009 Clemmons paid $15,000 for a $190,000 bail bond and was released. Less than a week later he murdered officers Mark Renninger, 39; Ronald Owens, 37; Tina Griswold, 40; and Greg Richards, 42.

Who’s to blame: Maurice Clemmons and Arkansas Correctional for being plain lazy.