Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, October 28, 1994 TAG: 9410280062
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: A11 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Warner was the luncheon speaker at Bell Atlantic's Southwest Virginia/Blue Ridge Regional Small Business Conference in Roanoke. The regional meeting involved 40 chambers of commerce and was a prelude to next June's White House Conference on Small Business.
Small companies, generally defined as those with fewer than 500 employees, represent almost 98 percent of Southwest Virginia's businesses.
Cathie Carter of Martinsville, marketing director for 15 Taco Bell restaurants in the region, told Warner in emphatic tones punctuated by the crowd's applause to eliminate government programs that make it more attractive for people to collect government entitlement checks than to hold jobs.
"Tell them good ole boys in Washington it ain't working," Carter told Virginia's senior senator.
Today's job applicants often lack a work ethic and a sense of morality, Carter said. "We can't even find them that'll say please and thank you."
John Jennings, director of the Small Business Development Center in Roanoke, complained to Warner that the federal Small Business Administration, the agency designed to make it easier for small businesses to get started, imposes credit requirements on new or expanding businesses that are tougher than those set by local banks.
Warner promised to look into it.
Another speaker complained about the lack of minority-owned manufacturing firms in Southwest Virginia and said the lack of jobs for minorities was contributing to the growing problem of violence.
Warner cited his support of requirements for minority participation in defense and highway projects but said he felt the federal government's role in promoting minority businesses should be limited.
Warner told the group that operators of small firms had played a significant role this past year in defeating health care legislation that would have required businesses to provide coverage to their employees. "It didn't get through for good, valid reasons," Warner said.
Although he praised President and Hillary Rodham Clinton for starting the first significant debate on the health care issue, Warner criticized the president for remaining intractable on the issue of employer mandates.
If mandated coverage could have been removed from the legislative equation, Congress might have passed health care reform that would have made health insurance portable from one job to another and would have reformed the laws of medical malpractice that have added to the cost of health care, Warner said.
The participants in Thursday's conference developed policy positions on a number of issues covering the areas of education and training, environmental regulation, procurement, innovation and technology, health care, and exporting.
Those positions will be discussed as the state delegation prepares for the June White House .
Among the recommendations were:
Require economic impact studies of environmental regulations affecting small businesses.
Cut back on paperwork in government procurement contracts.
Speed up the workings of the Small Business Administration.
Keep the private sector in control of the health care system.
by CNB