President Obama and his staff are no doubt preparing for next week's State of the Union speech with all the seriousness required of such an event. The National Retail Federation wanted to be sure the President had all his talking points down and sent him a letter with topics retailers would like to see addressed.
Pointing to newly elected Republican majorities in the House and Senate, Matthew Shay, president and CEO of the NRF, wrote, "We encourage you and the leadership of both parties in both chambers of Congress to set aside partisan differences and seize this unique opportunity to finally act on a number of long-stalled bills that would boost the economy and jobs for the benefit of the American people."
Without saying so directly, Mr. Shay's letter seemed to acknowledge that it was the Republican controlled House that prevented bi-partisan legislation on immigration and sales tax fairness passed by the Senate from reaching the President's desk in recent years. How that is likely to change now that Republicans are in the majority of both houses of Congress remains to be seen.
There are other issues that have been opposed by Democrats, however, that could move forward if the President is willing to compromise with GOP leaders. Biggest of these would be making a change to what constitutes full-time work under the Affordable Care Act.
To this issue, Mr. Shay wrote, "While we have agreed to disagree on many aspects of the Affordable Care Act, at the very least the law should be amended to recognize that 40 hours a week is the time honoured standard of 'full-time' in America. And, in order to allow the nation's smallest businesses to focus on job creation rather than federal mandates, it should apply only to those with 100 or more truly full-time employees."
Other items high on NRF's legislative to-do list include comprehensive tax reform, cybersecurity, international trade agreements, patent litigation reform and investing in the nation's infrastructure.