There are always a few items we’ve read during the week that deserve more attention but don’t make it into our regular posts. So we bundle them for the Friday roundup.
Here’s this week’s bundle:
Forbes: Capitalism for the Poor: A Rising Tide in Jersey City
These nuts and bolts of running a business are all included in the 12-week curriculum of the Community Business Academy, the signature program of Rising Tide Capital, the 12-year old organization premised on the idea that entrepreneurialism can be the route up from poverty…
Beginning with flyers posted around the city’s Bergen-Lafayette section (where shootings remain common today), Rising Tide has graduated 1,500 current and prospective entrepreneurs in Jersey City, Elizabeth, Orange , Union City, and Newark (most recently helping to support a similar program on Chicago’s South Side). The results go far beyond completing the course: nearly 300 of those graduates have started new businesses, while some 460 have seen expansions in businesses they already operated when they enrolled with Rising Tide.
Oregonian: Oregon’s history of rejecting tax reform and spending limits opened door for Measure 97
More than any other state, Oregon relies on income taxes to pay for programs from foster care to prisons to universal kindergarten — a volatile cash stream that swings wildly along with the finances of the state’s wealthiest residents.
The Lens: Will Washington Rein in Rule-Makers?
In Colorado, the General Assembly reviews rules adopted by state agencies to ensure they comply with agency statutory authority, as well as state and federal law. Rules that do not meet these requirements are rescinded…
Lawmakers might take a cue from the State Auditor’s Office. A January 2015 performance audit took issue with the state’s disparate array of rules and regulations, and strongly urged agencies to try harder to consolidate compliance requirements faced by the private sector.
“Coordination on regulatory matters offers many benefits to both businesses and government, including reducing the time and cost of regulatory decisions,” the audit concluded.
Walla Wall Union-Bulletin (editorial): Lawmakers need self-motivation to finally get schools funded
Lawmakers from both parties are now meeting to go over spreadsheets of various scenarios of levy-funding shifts showing what districts will gain and which will lose.
It’s likely there are no scenarios in which each and every district would be pleased.
The net percent of small business owners who expect better business conditions in the next six months jumped 12 points last month, according to the NFIB Small Business Economic Trends Report (SBET), released today, but that gain was erased by significantly weaker inventories and hard-to-fill job openings…
“We improved from awful to bad,” said Juanita Duggan, NFIB President and CEO. “The bottom line is that small business owners are deeply uncertain about the future, and that is affecting their decisions.”
