* The NFIB vigorously opposes Rauner’s service tax proposal and it “adamantly, adamantly” opposes an increase in the minimum wage, which Rauner also used to believe, but says he no longer does. Even so, the NFIB really had no other place to go in this race…
The National Federation of Independent Business, the nation’s and Illinois’ leading small-business association, has endorsed Bruce Rauner for governor. NFIB announced the endorsement at a Rauner campaign event at FlagSource, an NFIB member business in Batavia.
“Bruce Rauner is clearly the best choice for small business,” said Kim Clarke Maisch, state director of NFIB/Illinois. “Bruce Rauner comes from the business community. He understands that government mandates and high taxes make it even harder for small, family businesses to grow and create jobs.
“We need a governor who sees the big picture, who understands what it takes to keep people working and to make Illinois competitive again and build a strong economy,” she said. “We need Bruce Rauner.”
Before endorsing, NFIB carefully vetted both candidates for governor, their positions on key issues and performed a statewide poll of the NFIB/Illinois membership. The endorsement comes from the NFIB/Illinois SAFE (Save America’s Free Enterprise) Trust, the political action committee for NFIB/Illinois’ membership.
Today’s endorsement puts the considerable grassroots support of the state’s small businesses behind the governor’s campaign. Small business owners and their employees vote in high numbers and are known for recruiting friends, family members and acquaintances to vote.
NFIB will encourage its 11,000 dues-paying members in Illinois to help turn out the influential small business voting bloc on Election Day.
Discuss.
*** UPDATE *** Here’s the Rauner campaign video of the endorsement…
* From an accompanying press release…
Illinois gubernatorial candidate Bruce Rauner today called on Governor Pat Quinn to quit stalling investigations into his administration and release all documents related to both NRI and illegal patronage hiring.
“Pat Quinn continues breaking promises and refuses to come clean with the people of Illinois,” Rauner said at the NFIB endorsement press conference in Batavia. “After promising the people he would fully cooperate with the investigations, we learned just yesterday that he’s refusing to disclose emails to the Legislative Audit Commission regarding NRI.”
Yesterday, the Chicago Sun-Times reported that Governor Quinn is refusing to disclose emails regarding NRI, prompting the co-chair of the Legislative Audit Commission to request Attorney General Lisa Madigan to enforce the subpoenas.
“That’s not the sign of someone fully cooperating,” Rauner said. “What is this governor hiding and who is he protecting?”
- Ducky LaMoore - Friday, Sep 12, 14 @ 9:48 am:
Finally!!! A small business group gets it!!! More taxes and a higher minimum wage grows the economy!!! Hurry, call Robert Reich! He’s gonna want to endorse this guy too!!!
- Wally - Friday, Sep 12, 14 @ 9:50 am:
Ducky, do you own a small business?
- low level - Friday, Sep 12, 14 @ 9:52 am:
Have they ever backed a Dem for Gov? I mean any group that has SAFE - save America’s free enterprise, you got to be kidding me. Again, these are the same types that feel that the very Constitution itself is threatened if there is not a tax cut or that any common sense regulation that protects safety will eventually bring Stalin himself.
If they were smart they’d realize a strong regulatory system ensures everyone plays by the same rules which in turn helps the very people they represent can compete in the private market.
- Wally - Friday, Sep 12, 14 @ 10:05 am:
Yeah, those pesky small businesses, in the trenches working 50-60-70 hours a week, meeting payroll, paying taxes, just don’t know what they are talking about. But, someone taking 3-4 long breaks a day, sitting in a cubicle constantly checking his fantasy football team on the government computer, that person has it all figured out.
- Apocalypse Now - Friday, Sep 12, 14 @ 10:10 am:
The NFIB represents the backbone of the business community in Illinois. NFIB members are the biggest job creators and affected most by cumbersome regulations and taxes. Wise choice by NFIB to endorse Rauner.
- low level - Friday, Sep 12, 14 @ 10:14 am:
Go for it, Wally! Any others you forgot to add in?
- Nonplussed - Friday, Sep 12, 14 @ 10:17 am:
I didn’t know the NFIB was a thing until you posted this.
- Precinct Captain - Friday, Sep 12, 14 @ 10:18 am:
Why such a low blow at VanillaMan Wally?
Where is there any evidence the NFIB is the “backbone of the business community in Illinois”? Big and medium business is where it’s at in the American economy and it’s been that way for awhile.
- wordslinger - Friday, Sep 12, 14 @ 10:18 am:
Meh, what have those guys ever done, ever, for small business in Springfield?
Big business gets all the cheddar.
- A guy... - Friday, Sep 12, 14 @ 10:19 am:
No shock here. They’re lining up right where they should. They have some disagreements, but they’re looking at an entire policy approach and philosophy. If business is what ails us, we won’t raise revenue with a Governor who just doesn’t and hasn’t ever understood it.
- Ducky LaMoore - Friday, Sep 12, 14 @ 10:20 am:
@Wally
Self-employed
- walker - Friday, Sep 12, 14 @ 10:52 am:
Word has it. This group actually does nothing in Springfield but trumpet the needs of big companies.
The small and medium-sized companies do produce almost all the growth in jobs our economy. It’s just that the NFIB doesn’t really represent them. On any issue where the needs of the small compete with the needs of the large, NFIB and the Chamber side with the largest companies — who of course financially support them.
Local chambers are representative of small companies, but they don’t seem to control their state organization’s lobbying efforts.
- Hit or Miss - Friday, Sep 12, 14 @ 10:56 am:
Might the best candidate for the NFIB membership in fact be ‘none of the above’? Rather than back either Quinn or Rauner might the better course of action have been for the NFIB to back neither?
- Leprechaun - Friday, Sep 12, 14 @ 11:07 am:
Read the second from last paragraph it says behind the Governors campaign, isn’t that Quinn?
- JS Mill - Friday, Sep 12, 14 @ 11:10 am:
@Wally- =But, someone taking 3-4 long breaks a day, sitting in a cubicle constantly checking his fantasy football team on the government computer, that person has it all figured out.=
Ahh…the high road. I see how that is done, everyone on a “government” computer is a lazy loafer. Exaggerations aside, the small business world is a tough one but Rauner has no concept of what that world is like. He does not run a small business, his wife runs an Educare school in Chicago that is dependent on Pat Quinn apporved ECE funds. She was at GTCR before that. Quinn has no clue on small business, neither does Rauner.
- Demoralized - Friday, Sep 12, 14 @ 12:36 pm:
==we won’t raise revenue with a Governor who just doesn’t and hasn’t ever understood it==
Unfortunately Rauner doesn’t have a clue about government so I don’t see the situation getting any better if he is elected, especially given his impossible promises of cutting revenues and increasing spending at the same time.
- low level - Friday, Sep 12, 14 @ 12:50 pm:
Oh man - so NFIB track record at representing small business is bad and Rauner would make things worse with his zero understanding of government? Billionaire Bruce shaking up Springfield. Yeah
- A guy... - Friday, Sep 12, 14 @ 2:06 pm:
=== Demoralized - Friday, Sep 12, 14 @ 12:36 pm:
==we won’t raise revenue with a Governor who just doesn’t and hasn’t ever understood it==
Demo, play fair. An economic recovery that increases tax payers, rather than taxes is a very good thing. We could do a number of things very quickly that would make Illinois more competitive for businesses. Pat Quinn is just of a very, very opposite philosophy on this. As long as that stays the same, real recoveries are going to be very tough to achieve.
- Rich Miller - Friday, Sep 12, 14 @ 2:09 pm:
A guy… could you send me an email please? You’re not in trouble. I just wanna ask you something. Thanks!!!
- Yellow Dog Democrat - Friday, Sep 12, 14 @ 2:20 pm:
NFIB is a tool of the big business community.
Stop pretending that they represent the interest of small businesses.
The tax and regulatory codes are the sword and shield that big companies use to slash the throats of small business and shove them out of markets, and the NFIB has never called them on it.
- Demoralized - Friday, Sep 12, 14 @ 2:25 pm:
@A guy:
I know you are a smart guy so I know that you should know that Rauner’s math on the budget simply doesn’t work. Even if you believe in the economics of what you say, it will do nothing in the short term to alleviate the giant hole Rauner will put in the budget with the fiscal policies he has outlined. What you are suggesting will take years to turn into increased revenues for the state and even then I don’t believe for a second they would make up for the revenue that he would eliminate with his plans.
- A guy... - Friday, Sep 12, 14 @ 2:41 pm:
There goes my anonymity, but if Miller asks, Miller gets. Coming. lol
- A guy... - Friday, Sep 12, 14 @ 2:45 pm:
Nobody’s math on the budget works Demo. It would be hard to produce anything that would take into account everything we’ve done wrong for so long. I’m supporting the guy I think can push things in the right direction, that’s all.
- Yellow Dog Democrat - Friday, Sep 12, 14 @ 3:04 pm:
A guy-
I recommend Republicans take a hard look at Kansas before committing themselves any further to hand the steering wheel to Rauner.
Business leaders and local Republicans are apoplectic over the impact of the Brownback budget cuts.
- A guy... - Friday, Sep 12, 14 @ 3:30 pm:
I’ve been looking at Kansas Y Dog. That is actually a good template for how to do things more carefully i.e. more carefully than they did. Rauner has better business sense than Sam Brownback.
For all the purists, why didn’t you back Dawn Clark Netsch when she proposed the exact right formula for dealing with state revenue and property taxes? Let that one roast for a minute or two.
- A guy... - Friday, Sep 12, 14 @ 3:31 pm:
To the inquiring minds, I went to the Principal’s office. No scars. lol.