Sam Caucci: Small businesses continue to face challenges

AFP

Despite an improving economy, small businesses continue to face challenges every day. Whether its challenges retaining talent, not being sure how tax reform will affect business costs or untrained college graduates trying to enter the workforce, small business owners are running their businesses day to day and trying to figure out what’s the outlook over the next 6 to 12 months.

Virginia posts 2.2 percent revenue increase in April

AFP

Gov. Bob McDonnell announced today that April revenue collections increased by 2.2 percent over the prior year. April is a significant month for revenue collections, because, in addition to regular revenue collections, final payments for tax year 2012 and the first estimated tax payment for tax year 2013 were due from corporations April 15. On a year-to-date basis, total revenue collections rose 4.1 percent through April, ahead of the annual forecast of 3.6 percent growth.

mark warner

Mark Warner joins bipartisan group introducing Student Right to Know Before You Go Act

Chris Graham

U.S. Sens. Mark R. Warner (D-VA), Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Marco Rubio (R-FL) today introduced The Student Right to Know Before You Go Act to ensure that a wide range of comparative data about higher education programs is more readily available for prospective students and their families. They discussed their bipartisan legislation during a roundtable on Capitol Hill this morning with students, parents and school counselors.

mark warner

Roundtable allows farmers to weigh in on immigration reform

AFP

Sen. Mark R. Warner, D-Va., said the so-called Gang of Eight’s current immigration bill “is the best chance in 35 years to fix a broken immigration system.” Warner announced that to a room full of farmers and agribusiness professionals during a May 3 round-table discussion about immigration reform at Virginia Farm Bureau Federation’s headquarters.

U.S. Chamber report lists Virginia among top states for innovation

AFP

A report released this week by the United States Chamber of Commerce recognized Virginia among the top three states in the country for innovation and entrepreneurship. Virginia ranked sixth in the Chamber’s report last year. The report recognized Gov. Bob McDonnell’s “Year of the Entrepreneur” campaign in the report and the role of Virginia’s Business One Stop to help “entrepreneurs obtain the information and complete the steps required to register their businesses and find resources to help them grow and expand.”