The Lob

Telling Congress What We Need: CompTIA’s DC Fly-In

In early November, I was part of a lobbying delegation charged with telling congressional staffers the story of small technology businesses.  CompTIA’s “DC Fly-In” took place on Capitol Hill in the various congressional office buildings.  I live in Maryland so I met with the staff of my state’s two U.S. senators, Ben Cardin and Barbara Mikulski, and my congressman, Chris Van Hollen. The effort was very worthwhile. Below is a picture of the delegation's motorcade just outside of the Eisenhower Office Building.



Why Small Business Lobbying Efforts are Important

The CompTIA team was extraordinarily helpful in setting up these meetings and provided background information on some of the legislative issues that are affecting small businesses. They allowed each of us to talk to the congressional staffs about our individual stories and share our concerns.

Big corporations hire lobbyists to work year round to make sure legislation does not affect them adversely. In fact, Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez of California shared a story about Bill Gates. Apparently, Microsoft did not originally have lobbyists on Capitol Hill. Then, after the government said the company was a monopoly and tried to break it up, Gates hired lobbyists—lots of them. Sanchez says Microsoft now has four lobbyists for every member of Congress. Most big firms have people calling on congressional staffers all the time to discuss legislation that is important to their company. Small businesses need a voice to explain their issues as well. The squeaky wheel gets noticed.








Meeting the Right People

Having never participated in a lobbying effort before, I was happy to see how open congressional staffers were to meeting with constituents. All you have to do is call up your representative or senator’s office and get on the calendar. The CompTIA advocates were able to schedule appointments for us so it made the task easier. But the process is pretty straight forward. The meetings are almost always with a legislative assistant, the people in the office who take detailed notes which they share with your congressional members.

The Issues - Start Your Egg Timer

These meetings are fast, anywhere from 10-20 minutes. The staffers take lots of notes, sometimes asking questions and then sharing details of about what the congressional member is doing about the issue. Their days are packed with similar meetings, so I am not sure how clearly the information is passed along in the form we intended.  Nevertheless, that is the process that most constituents and lobbyists go through, unless they have a relationship with a representative or senator who allows one-on-one meetings.

With such a limited amount of time, I chose to talk with legislative aides about the following issues:

1. Anti-spam laws
As CEO of an email marketing firm, I pay attention to legislation that affects electronic communications. For instance, the U.S. CAN-SPAM Act provided teeth for the government and companies to crack down on unethical email activities. Canada and European Union have since passed laws that are much more stringent and allow private citizens to file suit. If the U.S. followed their lead, it would result in a quagmire of challenges for even the most ethical small business. The EU law also covers a very large base of privacy issues, including tracking user behavior with “cookies” on your computer. I urged our legislators not to go down that path since it is too strict. While our law might need some refinements, expanding coverage to match the Canadian and EU laws is not something our country should replicate.

2. Job retraining

There is a dearth of qualified engineering talent in this country. While national jobless rates remain at unprecedented high levels, there are 450,000 unfilled jobs in technology. These are high paying positions, with an average salary of $81,000. Offering (re)training options for the under or unemployed, and incentives for companies to hire retrained workers will help everybody.

3. Taxes (state and federal) from the full perspective of a small business

You might not know this, but the heavy unemployment has caused most state’s unemployment insurance funds to be depleted. In Maryland, where my business is based, the fund went from $1B to $300M in just two years. As a result, the governor had few options but to increase the unemployment tax, 2-12% increase on payroll taxes for businesses. If you use 5% as the average increase, for every $1M in payroll a business will now pay about $55k in unemployment taxes—compared to $6k just two years ago. For hard hit construction companies, that amount is over $100k. This increase equals from one to three full-time salaries, which inhibits a small businesses’ ability to expand its workforce.

The federal payroll tax for businesses and employees is 6.2% each. Congress passed a one-year reduction for the employee to 4.2%, which expires at the end of this year. I urged Congress to extend this reduction because it offers much needed relief for many companies and employees.

4. Section 179: soon to expire expense allowances

The tax code allows a small business to deduct the full purchase price of equipment purchases up to $500k. In 2012, this limit will revert back to $150k unless congress extends the tax cut. Why is this cut so important? Businesses that spend a lot on new equipment typically do so to expand, which means adding more jobs. By keeping this cut in place, small businesses will have more capital on hand to hire more workers.

Other members of our delegation spoke to their representatives’ aides on related issues.

 



Is There Any Business Experience in the White House?

The next day, we met as a group with the President’s senior technology and small business advisors in the Eisenhower Office Building, located next to the White House. I did not realize that the President had not appointed a single small business owner to his Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, led by GE Chairman and CEO Jeffrey Immelt. Apparently, he had the opportunity to do so-—several Members of Congress had nominated a fellow CompTIA member— but it didn’t happen. This point, among others, created an energized discussion. While the advisors were very welcoming with our feedback, the meeting reinforced my impression that there is a shortage of business experience among the President’s staff.  Some of them understand the needs of small business, but many do not.





I was very glad to have participated in this advocacy effort. It made me feel that I was working toward solutions rather than complaining about the problems. Our goal from meeting with Congress was to create more awareness of the issues that are important to small technology firms. The issues we discussed affect most SMB organizations. With the lobbying landscape dominated by large firms with the resources to push their personal interests forward, it is important that small business owners unite with one voice to shed light on legislation that affects us. After all, we employ over 50% of the U.S. workforce.

If you could tell your member of congress something, what would it be? Write to your representative and senator and share what you told them in this blog’s comment section.

Raj Khera is a CompTIA member and CEO of MailerMailer, a channel-centered organization that provides cost-effective email marketing, content and social media tools to IT consulting businesses. You can contact him directly by calling 301-825-5658 (or connect with him on LinkedIn at http://www.linkedin.com/in/rajkhera).