Press Releases
In the News
- The Hill: Frank Knapp, Who owns the economy?
8/2/10 - Bloomberg BusinessWeek: No lobbying help for the little guys
7/29/10 - Portfolio: Small Businesses Face Dire Times With Little Support
7/27/10 - Washington Post: Chamber of Commerce losing battles
7/22/10 - New York Times: Small Businesses Go After Offshore Tax Havens
7/20/10 - Reuters: U.S. could lose $37 billion a year to tax havens
7/20/10 - Dow Jones: Sen Levin Seeks To Add Anti-Tax Haven Measure To Lending Bill
7/20/10 - Inc: Small Businesses Fight Offshore Tax Havens
7/19/10 - Huffington Post: How the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Sells Out Small Businesses and Local Communities
7/19/10 - Huffington Post: Bank Reform Groups Celebrate Final Passage
7/16/10
Resource Spotlight
New Report and Sign On: Business and Investors Against Tax Haven Abuse
End tax dodging and support a level playing field for business by enacting strong legislation to stop tax haven abuses. Offshore tax havens reward tax evaders, rob public funds of needed revenue and offload taxes to responsible businesses and households. Everyone needs to pay their fair share to keep America moving forward. Our economic progress is undermined when companies are rewarded for financial manipulation rather than productive investment, innovation and job creation.
Click here for Tax Haven statement, sign on
Click here for New Report: Unfair Advantage: The Business Case Against Tax Havens
Financial Reform Signed Into Law July 21
President Obama signed financial reform legislation into law on July 21, with Business for Shared Prosperity among the invited guests. The bill includes important reforms such as creation of a consumer financial protection watchdog advocated in our statement signed by the US Women's Chamber of Commerce, South Carolina Small Business Chamber of Commerce, the Main Street Alliance and hundreds of business owners and executives across the nation.
Financial Reform Statement and Sign On
Consumer Financial Protection Signers List
Business for a Fair Minimum Wage
Don't Let Business Groups Against Raising the Minimum Wage Speak For You. Join nearly 1,000 owners and managers - including the CEOs of Costco, Addus HealthCare, ABC Home, Eileen Fisher, U.S. Women's Chamber of Commerce -and small business owners in every state who support a higher minimum wage.
Sign On Here To Support Raising the Minimum Wage.
View Signatories in formation.
Quotable Quotes
Without tough financial reform the ‘too big to fail’ banks will go back to their own greedy, irresponsible and even fraudulent ways – and they will fail all of us again. Small business owners work far too hard and play by the rules to deserve this big bank-made disaster. Support small business or protect the big banks and Wall Street. This should be an easy decision for every member of Congress.”
-Frank Knapp Jr., President and CEO of the South Carolina Small Business Chamber of Commerce
The U.S. Women's Chamber of Commerce and its 500,000 members stands squarely behind the needs of America's Main Street small businesses in asking Congress to represent our interests through bringing strong transparency, oversight and accountability to Wall Street. The creation of a strong, independent Consumer Financial Protection Agency will benefit businesses, especially small businesses, which create most of the nation's new jobs. It's too often forgotten that small-business owners frequently rely on personal credit – such as personal credit cards and home equity loans – to start, run and expand their businesses.”-Margot Dorfman, CEO, U.S. Women's Chamber of Commerce
I’ve owned a small business in St. Louis for 31 years. The financial meltdown has shown us how greedy and unscrupulous operators can disrupt the flow of credit and bring our economy to its knees. A consumer protection agency would protect my customers, my business and the economy, keeping responsible lenders from having to compete with sleazy credit hustlers. Common-sense regulation will free money to flow to responsible borrowers, protect the value of our savings and pension funds and direct our nation's financial resources toward job creation and the return of our national prosperity."
-Lew Prince, CEO/Co-Owner, Vintage Vinyl, St. Louis, MO
The subjects of the state ought to contribute toward the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities; that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the state."
-Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, 1776
I like to pay taxes. With them I buy civilization."
-Oliver Wendell Holmes, Supreme Court Justice
The increase in the minimum wage is long overdue. Paying your employees well is not only the right thing to do but it makes for good business."
-Jim Sinegal, CEO, Costco
It is but equity...that they who feed, clothe and lodge the whole body of the people, should have such a share of the produce of their own labor as to be themselves tolerably well fed, clothed and lodged."
-Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, 1776
Solutions that depend on driving down costs by reducing wages and social benefits — in advanced countries or in emerging economies — are always dead ends…
Strategies based on exploiting low-wage labor end up in competitive jungles, where victories are vanishingly thin and each day brings a new competitor… The activities that succeed over time are, in contrast, those that build on continuous learning and innovation."
-Suzanne Berger, How We Compete: What Companies Around the World Are Doing To Make It in Today’s Global Economy (MIT Industrial Performance Center study of more than 500 companies)
