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

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

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

Take this debacle with the nomination of Dr. Winslow Sargeant. Personally, given that it is not required by statute for the Chief Counsel of the SBA Office of Advocacy to be a lawyer, Senator Olympia Snowe’s intransigence about it strikes me as being a bit unreasonable … even irrational.

-ahem-

Do you really have to be a lawyer in order to go to bat for small businesses that are regularly browbeaten by federal regulations? I wouldn’t have thought so, not when there are attorneys on staff at Advocacy and when the real experts on the subject are small business owners on those Advocacy panels I keep hearing about.

On the Senate floor, Senator Mary Landrieu mentioned that when the economy is in the sort of shambles it’s in right now, this is not the time to withhold any sort of resource for small businesses — including their very own advocate within the federal government.

She’s right. And, just between us, I sure hope they get this resolved soon!

So, in other news … anybody taking bets on whether the federal budget will get cobbled together, passed by both the House and the Senate, and all 12 bills signed into law before the close of the fiscal year on September 30th?

Nah, I didn’t think so.

For more information:

• Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship
• Status of Fiscal 2011 Appropriations Bills (THOMAS)
• SBA Office of Advocacy

It was supposed to be an upgrade, really.

The original plan was to merge this podcast into a new Blog Talk Radio program called Microbusiness Conversations. The format of the show would be an initial ten minutes of microbusiness news followed by a twenty minute conversation with the week’s guest.

What I found out was that (a) this podcast really does not lend itself to that sort of format and (b) if I did that, I would leave my regular podcast listeners hanging. There was no convenient way to transfer you guys over to BTR.

So, here I am and I apologize for going AWOL for a couple of weeks.

As for this week’s news, don’t let the title fool you. The BIG story this week is all about data. There were two separate data releases from Advocacy and Census and both contained their share of surprises.

(If you want details, you can head on over the The Journal Blog and check out last week’s posts.)

And, in addition to all that, we’re back with this week’s Policy Matters.

For more information:

• Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship
• SBA Office of Advocacy
• U.S. Census Bureau Nonemployer Statistics

Are you excited?

Last week, President Obama signed the relevant proclamation, which proclaimed, in part:

In this year’s State of the Union address, I proposed creating a $30 billion lending fund to help increase the flow of credit to small businesses, and I call on the Congress to pass this legislation quickly. My Administration is also working to extend and enhance Small Business Administration programs that have helped small business owners acquire loans and hire workers.

This week, we celebrate the role of entrepreneurs and small businesses in our national life. They are the engine of our prosperity and a proud reflection of our character. A healthy small business sector will give us vibrant communities, cutting-edge technology, and an American economy that can compete and win in the 21st century.

Because never let it be said that a president lost an opportunity to pat himself on the back — presumably because nobody else ever wants to do it, right?

So, this week’s news includes the latest effort to spur small business lending (likely to be fairly useless for most microbusinesses) and the latest dynamic jobs data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, showing that small businesses — including microbusiness employers — really were creating jobs during the third quarter of 2009, just like everybody said they wanted them to.

All this and another Policy Matters column, too.

For more information:

• House Committee on Financial Services
• Bureau of Labor Statistics

Last week, members of both the House and Senate Small Business Committees got an opportunity to get a little bit clued in to how microbusinesses do business now, and how larger small businesses hope to do business in the future — that is, using technology to get very lean and efficient.

It’ll be interesting, because some of those larger small businesses will shrink down to micro-size when the discover they can run their businesses with far fewer personnel and far larger profit margins.

Others will chose to either stay their medium size or maybe even grow larger and graduate into the large firm category, if they can.

I have a feeling that the firm size class numbers — due out for 2007 next month — will be very interesting to watch over the next few years.

For more information:

• House Committee on Small Business
• Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship
• SBA Office of Advocacy