So, Washington has been rather thin of microbusiness news lately, primarily because everybody has been focused on other things.

The new Republican House majority has been focused on passing a bunch of symbolic legislation that (they are perfectly well aware) doesn’t have a prayer of being signed into law. And never mind the President’s veto pen, this is stuff that won’t get past the Senate.

Meanwhile, the one thing they are not doing is focusing on everybody’s ongoing economic pain — except to the extent that they can manage to pass more tax breaks for amazingly wealthy people … but I digress.

They aren’t doing anything at all for small businesses but (before you accuse me of being in the middle of a partisan rant) neither is anybody else. The White House is full of corporate kiss-ups and the Senate isn’t any more micro-friendly now than it ever has been.

Actually, never mind micro-friendly. Not only is there little discussion of microbusinesses, there’s not even much attention being paid to small businesses. Well, except for the research.

There’s always research.

For more information:

• House Committee on Small Business
• NSBA 2011 Small Business Taxation Survey
• SBA Office of Advocacy

That happened this week. It usually shows up in my Policy Matters column but I was able to stay calm this week. That might be because I had so much to get irritated about.

There was the research report on small business and the tax gap, showing that we’ve been taking a bum rap for years now on that particular issue. Care to place a bet as to whether or not we’ll receive any kind of apology or acknowledgement of the injustices we’ve suffered at the hands of zealous IRS enforcers and lawmakers?

Then there was the other research, about women-owned businesses. By itself, that wasn’t bad but when it came to the president of American Express OPEN spouting nonsense about women running lifestyle businesses being a myth … well, yeah.

And then there was the Small Business Credit Card bill, which addresses some major problems for microbusinesses. And that would have been much nicer if the people behind the legislative proposal had actually intended to do us such a good turn because they finally understand our situation.

I guess I’m a little testy this week. And no, it is not PMS!

For more information:

• SBA Office of Advocacy
• Small Business Credit Card Act (THOMAS)
• State of Women-Owned Business (PDF)
• Womenable.com

No excuses and it would take much too long to explain, anyway. Suffice it to say that I’ve been having some time management issues.

This has been one of those weeks during which I felt like tearing out my hair in frustration. I don’t understand how our nation’s leaders can manage to so completely ignore the world’s second largest economy — that is, us.

Then again, I just don’t understand their thinking. They spend a lot of time, neurons and money protecting the Big Boys from the things that might hurt them, like regulations and competition from us.

We are left to sink or swim … which I guess makes sense, since they seem to be as hostile to us as our big business competitors are.

Level playing field? Don’t make me laugh.

I don’t spend this entire issue of the News Briefs snarling … honest!

For more information:

• Senate Committee on Finance
• National Association for the Self Employed
• National Small Business Association
• National Small Business Week
• House Committee on Small Business
• House Small Business Committee Democrats

The fact that he didn’t succeed was probably one of the most consistently bipartisan things that happened in a Washington that had been taken over by rabid partisanship.

Looking back, it was quite remarkable, really.

I won’t argue with the principle that belt-tightening is a very much needed thing but it’s interesting that he should choose to tightening the federal government’s belt on the backs of the low-income entrepreneur.

That seems wildly inappropriate. In fact, it seems like something President Bush would have done.

Microloan has a lot of friends on Capitol Hill and, specifically, on the Senate Small Business Committee. It might even have some friends left on the House Small Business Committee.

Given the history, it will be interesting to see what happens here.

Besides that and this week’s lead story, we have a brief check-in with the economy and the curious way the unemployment rate has fallen when job creation remains startlingly low.

And, of course, this week’s Policy Matter’s column — all about adjusting expectations.

For more information:

• House Judiciary Committee (Hearing Archive)
• NSBA Budget Overview
• AEO Blog
• Bureau of Economic Analysis
• U.S. Department of Labor
• U.S. Department of Commerce
• National Federation of Independent Business
• The Conference Board

So, speaking of regulatory issues, I promised you the twelve categories of businesses that need to be compliant, as listed in the Americans with Disabilities Act:

1. an inn, hotel, motel, or other place of lodging, except for an establishment located within a building that contains not more than five rooms for rent or hire and that is actually occupied by the proprietor of such establishment as the residence of such proprietor;
2. a restaurant, bar, or other establishment serving food or drink;
3. a motion picture house, theater, concert hall, stadium, or other place of exhibition entertainment;
4. an auditorium, convention center, lecture hall, or other place of public gathering;
5. a bakery, grocery store, clothing store, hardware store, shopping center, or other sales or rental establishment;
6. a laundromat, dry-cleaner, bank, barber shop, beauty shop, travel service, shoe repair service, funeral parlor, gas station, office of an accountant or lawyer, pharmacy, insurance office, professional office of a health care provider, hospital, or other service establishment;
7. a terminal, depot, or other station used for specified public transportation;
8. a museum, library, gallery, or other place of public display or collection;
9. a park, zoo, amusement park, or other place of recreation;
10. a nursery, elementary, secondary, undergraduate, or postgraduate private school, or other place of education;
11. a day care center, senior citizen center, homeless shelter, food bank, adoption agency, or other social service center establishment; and
12. a gymnasium, health spa, bowling alley, golf course, or other place of exercise or recreation.

So, now you know.

Besides that heads up for a new set of Justice Department regulations, this week’s microbusiness news includes a look at SBA initiatives for so-called “underserved” entrepreneurs and an annual research report on small business financing.

And, as always, my Policy Matters column.

For more information:

• U.S. Small Business Administration
• Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking: Accessibility of Web Information and Services of State and Local Government Entities and Public Accommodations
• NSBA: “Rule Requiring ADA-Compliant Websites Expected”
• SBA Office of Advocacy

House Small Business Committee Chairman Sam Graves (R-MO) noted in his weekly Straight Talk newsletter that “the Senate successfully approved an amendment that would repeal the 1099 reporting mandate, illustrating that there is bipartisan and bicameral support for a repeal of the mandate.”

As to that, we shall see.

The operative phrase in that headline is “on its way”. It ain’t over ’til the fat lady sings and she hasn’t even started warming up yet.

I know that not many microbusiness owners are thrilled by the politics — they are even less thrilled with that than they are with the policy — but this repeal effort is going to provide us all with an excellent opportunity to see how the dynamic between the Democratic leadership in the Senate and the Republican leadership in the House will shape itself during the 112th Congress.

You may think that isn’t interesting at all but that dynamic will dictate what sorts of things can be accomplished by either chamber of Congress and/or by President Obama himself.

Pass the popcorn.

Also this week, we have a pair of stories about how small businesses and microbusinesses are doing (more or less) right now in an economy that is taking a very long time to recover.

The employment picture looks different from different statistical perspectives. And small businesses look different when you listen to other people talking about them than they do when they talk about themselves.

Funny how that works, huh?

For more information:

• Small Business Paperwork Mandate Elimination Act of 2011 (THOMAS)
• NSBA 2010 Year-End Economic Report (PDF)
• Quarterly Data on Business Employment Dynamics release (PDF)
• Innovation | The White House

But I wouldn’t be doing my job if I were to pretend it didn’t happen, now wouldn’t I?

As far as the President’s policy priorities are concerned — and particularly when it comes to small business policy — there was absolutely no suspense and there were no surprises, either.

The advantage of having no surprises to report is that it allows you to have already gotten your disappointment out of the way early. By now, I expect you are merely resigned.

Meanwhile, the SBA Office of Advocacy released the 2009 edition of their annual State of Small Business report to the President. You can find my article covering the report from the more general small business angle at Small Business Trends. In this week’s podcast, I get a bit more micro-specific.

In addition, this week we have the ongoing search for “waste, fraud and abuse,” now in fashion in Washington, and this week’s Policy Matters.

For more information:

• State of the Union Address (video)
• State of the Union: Republican Response (YouTube)
• SBA Office of Advocacy
• Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship

I guess I figured the newly elected and re-elected Republican majority was so very gung-ho to get going that they would have gotten all that stuff done in record time. I guess some things never change.

I have to tell you, though, that while I was agreeably surprised by Chairman Sam Graves’ Web 2.0 savvy (although I expect I should really just be impressed by his staff’s Web 2.0 savvy), I am still longing for somebody in his position to really surprise me.

For all the partisan Capitol Hill scuffling and sniping that I’ve been listening to over the past seven years, policy makers on both sides of the aisle are very, very close in their views on what makes for good small business policy, what small businesses need and how best to meet those needs.

I haven’t heard anybody volunteer the information that they’ve learned enough about microbusinesses to warrant a bit of investigation, perhaps a hearing or two that will create the beginnings of a record to document the unique needs of microbusinesses.

I also haven’t heard anybody say that maybe we need a better understanding of how microbusinesses and nonemployers fit into the overall economy.

For that matter, nobody on Capitol Hill has even noticed the changing nature of the labor force.

Any of that stuff would be truly, eye-sparklingly exciting! Ah well …

I also wanted to once again draw your attention to the heads-up in this week’s news about the FTC being poised to formulate some industry self-regulation (that may turn into actual legislation down the road) on consumer privacy and behavioral advertising.

The FTC needs to hear from microbusinesses and their advocates on this one. There are links below (in the For more information section below) that will get you to the preliminary report and the page to submit comments. I doubt this is going to be one of those sets of regulations that won’t apply to microbusinesses, so let them hear from you!

Also on this week’s agenda: regulatory reform from the right and the left, and this week’s Policy Matters.

For more information:

• House Small Business Committee
• Executive Order: Improving Regulation and Regulatory Review
• Presidential Memorandum: Regulatory Flexibility, Small Business, and Job Creation
• Federal Trade Commission preliminary report on consumer privacy (PDF)
• Federal Trade Commission questions for comment (PDF)
• Federal Trade Commission comment submission page

I’ll confess that I’m a little out of practice but it’s good to know that I haven’t completely forgotten how to ride this bike.

And it’s a good time for me to get back to work.

There are times when it really does seem as if there is this peculiar anti-microbusiness sentiment in Washington and one doesn’t have to go far to find its source. Many lawmakers seem to think the self-employed are a bunch of tax cheats.

In fact, some of them seem to think we choose to be self-employed so that we can be tax cheats. Or, at the very least, they assume that the self-employed deliberately underreport their incomes and underpay their taxes.

For this, we have the National Taxpayer Advocate to thank.

Don’t get me wrong. The tax gap is a very real problem, as is the complexity of the tax code. The problem comes in when the relevant parties try to imagine why so many sole proprietors aren’t paying the correct amount of income tax. They pay lip service to the idea that most of the time these are honest mistakes but they don’t seem to actually believe it.

It makes them tend to be petty and ungenerous when it comes to small business policy and the self-employed.

And that, in turn, makes them into a bunch of hypocrites whenever they start talking about how much they love small businesses.

Okay, okay, not all of them. But quite a few of them. Mostly Democrats.

For more information:

• National Taxpayer Advocate’s 2010 Report to Congress
• Bureau of Labor Statistics
• The Conference Board
• National Federation of Independent Business
• US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO)

Nina Olsen, in case you didn’t know, is the National Taxpayer Advocate. A few years ago, when she named the tax gap as the top taxpayer challenge for fiscal 2004 and simultaneously nailed Schedule C filers as an entire class of tax cheats, she seemed like Microbusiness Public Enemy #1.

This year, she is letting everybody know that those new 1099 reporting requirements are absurd. So, now, it’s more like We Love Nina, right?

Besides taxes, there’s more political gyrations around what Congress can and should be and will do for small businesses and whether, as usual, all of that will turn out to be useless for microbusinesses.

There’s new numbers out this week, as well, and another edition of Policy Matters.

For more information:

• FY2010 National Taxpayer Advocate Report To Congress (PDF)
• Senators Reid, Landrieu Join SBA Administrator Mills To Discuss Support for Small Business
• U.S. Census Bureau: Survey of Business Owners
• Microbusiness Conversations