Improving Colorado's Small Business Climate

Small businesses are the strength of our economy accounting for 39 percent of the gross national product, creating two out of every three new jobs and producing two and one half times as many innovations per employee as do large firms

Despite their importance to the economy, small businesses are heavily burdened by the costs of government regulation and excessive paperwork

We advocate regulatory reform for small business, requiring state agencies to:

Analyze the impact of proposed regulations on small entities

Communicate and explain their findings to the public

Use flexibility and provide regulatory relief to small entities

Under this proposal, each agency must analyze how its regulations affect the ability of small entities to invent, to produce and to compete. Agencies will

Balance the burdens imposed by regulations against their benefits

Propose alternatives to those regulations that create economic disparities between different-sized entities

In addition, we should require the state government to:

Protect, strengthen and effectively represent the state's small businesses within the state government's legislative and rule-making processes

Pursue regulatory, legislative, and other policy initiatives that support small business growth

Prepare comment letters and testimony on state proposals that may affect small firms including access to capital, burdens of regulatory compliance, costs associated with telecommunications reform, and tax policies that do not fit small firm operations

Report the compliance of state agencies with this regulatory reform measure to the legislature each year

This initiative will work to reduce the burdens that state policies impose on small firms and maximize the benefits small businesses receive from the government.

Simply stated, it will encourage policies that support the development and growth of Colorado's small business