U.S. Rep talks small business: U.S. Rep. Dave Reichert meets with Valley officials at Snoqualmie City Hall

Published 10:02 am Thursday, November 19, 2015

Minimum wage, small business support, and the Affordable Care Act were some of the topics discussed when Eighth District Congressman Dave Reichert came to Snoqualmie City Hall on Nov. 12 to talk about his work in Congress.

In attendance were representatives from many Valley institutions including the Northwest Railway Museum, Encompass, Snoqualmie Valley Hospital, and the Snoqualmie Valley School Board.

The first question Reichert tackled was about the possibility of a rising minimum wage. He said the movement to increase it further needs to be careful not to reduce jobs or increase prices of products.

“There are two concerns. How does that affect small businesses and their decisions to hire people or lay them off if minimum wage goes up too fast? We don’t want to create a situation where we reduce the number of jobs,” he said. “The second issue associated with that is concern about the prices of products increasing and those customers having to pay a higher cost for services or goods.”

Reichert thinks the minimum wage should be handled in a thoughtful way with consideration and input from small businesses.

“In Snoqualmie we have a lot of small businesses operating and you want to keep those healthy, you want to keep them vibrant,” he said.

Reichert said he was excited to see bipartisan support for small businesses. Now he is trying to make the Section 179 deduction of the IRS tax code permanent. Section 179 lets business owners fully deduct the price of equipment or software during the tax year, in order to get businesses to invest in themselves.

He also has plans for two small business bills.

“One, allowing employees to be able to participate in a business by investing their money into the small business they work for, the other one is allowing small businesses to have access to certain revenue sooner. Past law has been ‘in 10 years you have access to this revenue.’ It’s been changed to seven years, we want to get it down to five years.“ he said.

Building on the small business question, Reichert then addressed the Affordable Care Act (ACA). He said there are many aspects of the act that Republicans like, but some they want changed. The employer mandate, which requires businesses with 51 to 100 employees to supply health insurance or face a fine, is one of those things.

He explained that sometime in 2016 Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, will propose a single Republican healthcare plan.

“Our alternative is that we want to give more choice back to the patient, we want to build that opportunity for patients and doctors to build that personal relationship without having the government engaged or involved,” he said.

Reichert was also asked about the Alpine Lakes, officially designated a wilderness area in December 2014, seven years after he first sponsored the bill to do so. He reported that the bill was one of the last bills of the 2014 session to pass, adding 22,000 acres to the area.

The Congressman also spoke about education, stating that he is working on a bill that will help states craft an education that best fits them instead of overwhelming kids with standardized tests.

“The idea of the bill is to try and put the responsibility back on the parents, the teachers, the superintendents, the principals, and the local communities,” he said. “Each community and school is different, it creates an atmosphere where education needs to be molded and modeled for that community and I think that’s where we want to go with this legislation.”

Although he was not directly asked about it, Reichert also spoke to the growing distrust of police in the country and the divide between the police and the communities they serve.

“I asked the speaker to put a task force together to look at how we got to this separation and I’m looking for some of the answers to how we can bring the police and communities back together,” Reichert said.

“The community cannot keep the community safe alone, and the police cannot keep the community safe alone, they need to be working with them.”

Valley representatives meeting with District 8 U.S. Representative Dave Reichert Thursday, are, from left:  School Board Director Carolyn Simpson, Snoqualmie Valley Hospital CEO Rodger McCollum, future Snoqualmie City Councilman Brad Toft, Rep. Reichert, Mayor Matt Larson, economic development consultant Lizzy Billington,  Eric Kaltenbacher, executive director of the Snoqualmie Valley Hospital Foundation and Snoqualmie Public Works Director Dan Marcinko.