A local Doylestown business owner and municipal official will be at the White House for Tuesday’s State of the Union address.
When President Barack Obama starts his annual address to Congress at 9 p.m., Det Ansinn, Doylestown Council president and owner of app development business Brick Simple, will be watching from inside the White House.
Invited through the nonprofit Business Forward, he said he’ll be there before, during and after the speech, watching it with White House staff. Ansinn is part of the group’s Local Leadership Council, which focuses on small businesses. The group also has members such as Wal-Mart, Verizon and Visa.
“Business has very specific interests, and we want that addressed through policy,” he said. “It is a privilege and honor to be there for the State of the Union.”
Also a member of the White House Business Council, Ansinn said he’s been on about a dozen trips to the White House since 2011. He said he and others were able to bring up issues facing small businesses to White House officials, including Obama and Treasury Secretary Jack Lew.
“I was so blunt, honestly (I) thought I wouldn’t get invited back,” he said about his first visit.
He said he’s had the opportunity to bring up issues that face his industry and others, such as immigration, access to loans through the Small Business Administration and long-term unemployment. He said the ideas generated by the group have made it to the speech itself.
He said, for instance, that the software development industry can be helped by immigration policy that allows highly skilled workers to more easily come to the U.S.
“We need resources, we need people, we are trying,” he said. “But bad immigration policy hurts the ability for our economy to grow.”
Michael Macagnone 215-345-3166; mmacagnone@calkins.com;
Twitter @awisefool
Source: Top Stories - Google News - http://ift.tt/1lcUVS8
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