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FOX VALLEY BUSINESS-TO-BUSINESS NETWORKING GROUP INVITES CONGRESSMAN FOSTER TO ADDRESS THEIR CONCERNSPosted October 15, 2009
BATAVIA, Ill. (Oct. 12, 2009) – On Friday morning, U.S. Congressman Bill Foster addressed an audience of more than 30 area business leaders in Batavia. The group consisted of members of B2B Live, a networking association of more than 20 business owners, and their invited guests, who represented a cross section of small- to mid-sized companies in the Fox Valley.
After offering highlights from his experiences as a business owner and a physicist, Foster turned to issues he has faced since entering office in March of 2008. He spoke to the critical challenges of stabilizing the banking system and addressing the mortgage crisis. Looking at B2B Live member Chris Woelffer, who is president of STC Capital Bank in St. Charles, Foster said, “Community banks did not break and were not the cause of this problem.”
Foster, who serves on the House Financial Services Committee and the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said two-thirds of his before-bedtime reading at night is regarding financial issues.
B2B Live member Austin Dempsey, whose company, Batavia Enterprises, hosted the event at one of its open properties on Water Street, asked if there are any initiatives in progress designed to support small business. Foster made the point that different types of businesses would experience recovery at different times. With a nod toward B2B Live member Paula Price of Batir Architecture in St. Charles, he said, architects will likely be one of the last businesses to see improvement; restaurants, on the other hand, will be among the first.
He suggested that the economic outlook seems to be improving, noting that unemployment in Kane County has dropped two points. “It looks like we’ve hit bottom in terms of unemployment,” he said.
“When we looked to develop a financial stimulus package, we had to answer two questions: How much and how long?” He said, “Unfortunately, unlike in science, we don’t have the benefit of having a test group. We’ll never know for certain if we could have gotten out of this recession sooner if we had invested more and faster in the stimulus.”
Foster said he is very worried about long-term debt, noting that the total debt in our country is currently equal to one year of GDP. He added that, if we lower our standard of living by 10 percent per year for 10 years and applied that amount to deficit reduction, we could eliminate the federal government’s long-term debt. “We can probably live with that, especially if we offset it by increasing our productivity through technology and education,” he said.
When asked when healthcare legislation would pass and what it would look like, Foster said he expected to see a bill by the end of the year. Specifics are still being hammered out in the House and Senate, he said, but he expects that when it is finalized, all people will be required to carry at least a basic insurance policy, similar to the basic requirement for auto insurance, and health insurance providers will no longer be allowed to exclude pre-existing conditions.
The conversation started to heat up after that, with business owners citing concerns about paying for extensions to unemployment insurance and for other people’s healthcare. Foster said, “I believe there is a category of things—a nice car, a big house—that you earn through the kind of hard work people like those here are engaged in, and there is a category of things, such as clean air, that we all have a right to. A basic level of healthcare is a right. There have to be limits to that basic level—we’re not talking about a private room at the Mayo.”
In addition to banking, property leasing and architectural design, B2B Live members and their guests represented legal and accounting services, commercial cleaning and insurance, promotional products and Web design, printing and publishing, telecommunications and renewable energy, among other businesses.
B2B Live is a Fox Valley-based network where business owners and decision makers, all targeting business-to-business customers with at least $1 million in revenues, exchange information and business knowledge. B2B Live membership is by invitation from a current member, and is conditional upon acceptance by current members. B2B Live meets semi-monthly, on the second and fourth Fridays, from 7:30 to 9 a.m., with meeting sites rotating to showcase member businesses. Business owners interested in participating may contact Craig Lowder of Affinity Business Partners at 630-761-1566.