{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://fortenberry.house.gov/media-center/fort-reports/small-business-saturday", "Fort Report: Small Business Saturday", "2017-12-01", "2017", "2017-12", "Republican", "House", "NE", "Jeff Fortenberry", "F000449", "fortenberry.house.gov", null, null, "legacy", "Small Business Saturday occurred this past week.\u00a0 I like it.\u00a0 It's not exactly a national holiday to be celebrated, but it reminds us of the importance of Main Street as an essential part of a properly functioning market based economy.\u00a0 \u00a0\nIt should not come as too big of a surprise that the idea of Small Business Saturday came from a major credit card corporation.\u00a0 I was impressed by their initiative, so awhile back, I randomly placed a call to the CEO to commend the company.\u00a0 He proudly informed me that the idea came from an intern.\u00a0\nWe are living in a paradoxical age where we are more and more dependent on big business for information flow and consumer goods, and at the same time, we are more and more skeptical of this model. \u00a0I was trained in an era where economic language was cast in terms of efficiency, optimization, economies of scale, production capacity, inputs, the free flow of capital and labor, on and on--all part of the vocabulary of academic economic theory.\u00a0 These are analytical, mechanical terms--necessary for understanding market function--but lacking any connection to deeper purpose.\u00a0 \u00a0\nUltimately a properly functioning market is a connector of community, a delivery mechanism for material well-being, and an opportunity enhancer for individual initiative.\u00a0 The classical economic expressions lack a deeper understanding of the ultimate purpose of production.\u00a0 I once asked a professor:\u00a0 Who does normative analysis--what ought to be?\u00a0 He answered--no one.\nWe are long past the time when working one's entire career for the same large corporation guaranteed security and wellbeing.\u00a0 The current corporate construct is desperately driven and hopelessly fragmented by quarterly profit mandates. \u00a0Short term decisions overrule long term strategy.\u00a0 While occasionally brought to heel by scandal and malfeasance, most multinationals are no longer tethered to a face or a place--so they pitch us on TV and print with caring images, and kindly deem us worthy to help with their chosen causes.\u00a0 The cities with major hub airports benefit.\u00a0 The rest of America buys.\u00a0\nOne of America's favorite corporations is Apple, an impressively disruptive organization that helped usher in the information age.\u00a0 It's sleek, edgy, and innovative.\u00a0 It shows what America can do.\u00a0 Many of us have benefited. \u00a0But let's take a deeper look.\u00a0 Apple is the largest company by market cap in the world. \u00a0Most people think the headquarters of Apple world is Cupertino, California. \u00a0A few others--think it is tax-friendly Dublin, Ireland, where Apple\u2019s intellectual property (the literal coin of the company\u2019s realm) is registered.\u00a0\nAs recently documented by the BBC, the truth is that for years Apple took advantage of a fluke in Irish tax law called \u201cthe Double Irish.\u201d \u00a0Apple declared corporate residence in Ireland without actually residing there or anywhere for that matter. Apple Computer\u2019s headquarters was literally and figuratively in the cloud, with significant production sources coming from China. \u00a0Economies of scale create efficiency, but creative disruption does not have to mean abandonment.\u00a0 The ongoing tax debate seeks to rebalance a number of business inequities, particularly for small business, where most jobs come from.\nWhile large businesses retain a necessary space in producing certain types of goods and large scale industrial products, and can provide exciting opportunity, there is a hunger for the next economic trend to reorient around the revitalization of Main Street\u2014including local food and sustainable energy production, smarter services, and smaller scale manufacturing--recreating that long lost sense of place within our communities.\u00a0 Imagine a new urbanism of an economic ecosystem with friendly neighborhoods, nearby centers of smaller scale,\u00a0micro businesses, contextually appropriate architecture, and a burgeoning supply of easily accessible public space.\u00a0 We see this trend developing.\u00a0\nBefore Kent retired, I used to shop at his shoe store.\u00a0 He knew me, he knew my size.\u00a0 Kent relied upon far away manufacturers, but he added the value of excellent service. \u00a0Even if it wasn't Small Business Saturday, he always got me to happily spend more than I wanted.\u00a0 Small business provides the associative attachment, the local cultural touchstones necessary for humane economies of scale.", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://fortenberry.house.gov/media-center/fort-reports/small-business-saturday"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.9436369184404612, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}