The Senate's Republican leader alerted small-business owners today to an array of Democrat policies that he said would undermine their best interests.

Speaking to members of the National Federation of Independent Business gathered at the Capitol, Sen. Andy McElhany warned the business owners to look past a handful of helpful , modest measures pushed through by the ruling party--to the underlying dangers in the Democrat agenda.

"There are some things going on in this building that are very troubling for businesses great and small," McElhany told the group, adding that the only good news for many businesses might be that the Democrat governor and his legislative allies appear to be holding off of action on some of their costlier proposals.
"Last year was the year of the study," he said. "This year is the year of talk."

McElhany then launched into a litany of bad-for-business measures that boil down to, "Political payoffs to trial lawyers, labor unions and extreme environmentalists." He said a lot of the policies either have been imposed already by the govenor and the legislative majority in the past couple of sessions or are now pending.