The House has voted to delay withholding of income taxes from contractor payments. The withholding, scheduled to begin in 2011, would be pushed back to 2012.

The legislation calls for a study of withholding’s impact on businesses and all levels of government.

The provision is part of the Tax Collection Responsibility Act, H.R. 3056. The Bush administration has threatened to veto the bill because it also blocks the IRS from using private collectors to collect overdue income taxes.

Rep. Kendrick Meek, D-FL, said, “This is a starting point to full repeal.” He is sponsoring H.R. 1023 to repeal the withholding requirement.

A top official of the Office of Personnel Management says the backlog of security clearance investigations should be eliminated by January.

“To me, it’s thrilling,” Kathy Dillaman, associate director for OPM’s Federal Investigative Services told the newspaper Federal Times. “It’s been like turning the Titanic.”

Others are not so sure. “We’re not getting any fewer complaints from industry,” a spokesman for Rep. Tom Davis, R-VA, said. Davis has been pressing for an overhaul of the clearance process.

The backlog of clearance investigations once topped 500,000. Dillaman told the newspaper that no more than 16,000 remain in the pipeline.

SBA approved 110,275 loans totaling more than $20.6 billion under its two primary small business loan guarantee programs during fiscal 2007, setting records in number of loans and dollars.

However, dollar volume declined slightly in the 7(a) loan guarantee program – most often used for working capital.

SBA said nearly one-third of all loans went to start-ups, and a third went to minority borrowers. The number of loans through the programs has reached a new high in each of the past six years.