Gaining Clarity of Mission

Over the last few days of working on building this new organization, feedback from small business owners has convinced me that the Delaware State Chamber of Commerce which  claims to speak on behalf of Delaware businesses,  follows an extreme, right-wing agenda that is ultimately concerned with lowering Delaware taxes paid by large multi-national corporations.

The State Chamber routinely support damaging tax cuts for the wealthiest companies which have the downstream effects of undermining successful social programs that our seniors depend upon like Social Security and Medicare, and cutting funding for teachers and first responders.

These short sighted financial policies are certainly not policies that benefit the broader Delaware’s business community or the middle-class Delawareans that depend on Delaware’s small businesses. We need to make sure that Delaware’s legislature does not view all questions related to our business environment through the narrow lens of lower taxes for fortune 500 companies that happen to reside in Delaware.

Fortunately, I have found that there are business owners in Delaware that realize that the solution to our problems is not an ever lower tax burden for our largest corporations, and over the next few months we will be working together to help build an organization that is an effective voice for Delaware’s socially responsible businesses.

Call For “Steering Committee” Members

The following email was sent out to a group of personal, business and political contacts this morning:

Subject: Liberal/Progressive Business Group Forming in Delaware

Hello,

Please forgive the impersonal natural of this mass email.  I wanted to get this out to as many people as possible, and while I know some of you will not be interested in a liberal/progressive business group forming in Delaware, it is my hope that you might know someone who fits the bill and pass this along to them.

My sense is that I am not alone among Delaware business owners who would like a more progressive voice to speak on behalf of Delaware business when the state legislature turns its attention to “business friendly” legislation.

- If you are like me, and you would like to see a business group advocate, promote, and fight for progressive legislation to improve the economy and business climate in Delaware through large and small quality-of-life improvements, we need to be in touch.

- If you are the type of business owner who realizes that your business is a part of a statewide community, and you are a little tired of Delaware businesses being portrayed as myopically interested in issues of taxation, then we need to get together and see where this goes.

My goal for this impersonal mass email is to get six to ten Delaware business owners who can meet for lunch by November 12^th to discuss the possibility of starting such a group. If all we ever do is get together for lunch to discuss the perils of being a liberal business owner, I am fine with that.  If this lunch group turns into a steering group that launches something like a Delaware version of Vermont’s Businesses for Social Responsibility ( http://vbsr.org/index.php ) even better!

If this email has been forwarded to you and you’d like to chat with me about my background or this concept please feel free to call me at 1(302)659-2070 ext 102.  If you know from reading this that you are interested in getting something like this started, simply email me back with your availability and I’ll start working on the scheduling.

Thanks,

Jason

Jason Scott

CEO | Prestwick House, Inc.

p 800.932.4593 | f 888.718.9333

DSBLG – The Voice of Delaware’s Progressive Business Owners

DSBLG members advocate, promote and fight for progressive legislation to improve the economy and business climate in Delaware through large and small quality of life improvements.

While other organizations that claim to be on the side of Delaware businesses merely advocate for lower taxes for large business interests, DSBLG members realize that business are members of a statewide community.  As such, we are actively involved in helping to build a more livable community by supporting small businesses which create high quality jobs.