[Smokin' Joe]

This is my big beef with the way things work: the politician we elect does not come up with their own ideas, the people coming up with the ideas are not elected, and the communication between them is not disclosed to the public. As long as the policies work out well the public has not been harmed, but if the policies that become law actually harms the citizenry (like Obamacare) - the dang thing was actually the brainchild of people who were not even elected and are essentially kept secret from the public.

While I take no issue with your concept, here, an increasing number of the regulations promulgated by various agencies are actually written by unelected appointees or bureaucrats who garner influence from nameless sources while they, themselves also remain nameless. These are the shadow regulators who increasingly bury not only small business, but the larger businesses upon which small business often depends for revenue stream.

Not all small business caters to the general public, much caters to niche markets meeting the needs of larger corporations.

For instance, I am a company of one. My company hires subcontractors, often similar in size, to do work for larger companies, among which are some of the largest corporate entities on the planet. My company's fiscal health and theirs is interrelated.

Often the regulations which affect the large corporations I do work for are generated by regulatory agencies which are not directly responsible to the electorate, nor the legislature, but exist as part of the executive branch of government, be that at the State or Federal level. Sometimes, those regulations affect me and my subcontractors directly, sometimes only indirectly by affecting the companies I work for, but they all have an effect.

What defense do we as small business owners have against those (often agenda-driven) regulations and the regulators who promulgate those regulations, especially since the probability of influencing regulators (short of injunctive or legislative relief) whose motivations approach religious fervor is nearly nil?

[PieterCasparzen]

My company hires subcontractors, often similar in size, to do work for larger companies, among which are some of the largest corporate entities on the planet. My company's fiscal health and theirs is interrelated.
...
What defense do we as small business owners have against those (often agenda-driven) regulations and the regulators who promulgate those regulations, especially since the probability of influencing regulators (short of injunctive or legislative relief) whose motivations approach religious fervor is nearly nil?

Excellent question. That is precisely the influence gap this think tank is aimed at filling.

This think tank's goal is to operate at a level on par with others. And then to get additional influence, we do "general promotion" (see mission Statement). We could have a public outreach campaign to generally support subcontractors by saying "have carve outs for subcontractors". Big biz has plenty of representation to take care of themselves; we focus exclusively on small. But we can make a big point of "even if a law is intended to apply to big biz and it will cost them, make sure the law is designed as much as possible to balance things out so small vendors are not hurt". It might be possible by adding in something not pertinent to the big co. at all, but something to benefit those small vendors to the point of offsetting their loss.

See, without something like our think tank the small guy has no seat at the table. These things are all ignored by elitist organizations, since they know you're probably voting for their generic pro-big-business viewpoint anyway !