Agree that "the government is obscenely out of touch with its constituency." Also agree that it makes sense to stop going to them for help, and the influencing the influencers is prudent. But there is another lever: get rid of the government system that would be so easily influenced by money over and above policy. Turn 'em out. Withdraw consent of the governed.
Here's a list of bills that got through the subcommittee: seems to include expanding the 500 shareholder limit; getting rid of the general solicitation prohibition when investors are accredited; and more (in addition to the crowdfunding bill).
A bit surprising to me that a subcommittee of the House Financial Services Committee has approved this bill, but there's not much fuss over it that I can tell. Seems like it would make sense for entrepreneurs to leave comments on the site? Zero so far (are they screening them?), and the news has been up there almost a week.
live-blogging now on an SEC forum discussing the accredited investor definition, ie, who is allowed to be an angel in startup offerings http://goo.gl/fb/Y5nnE
grellas what you relayed at your point 9 surprised me, too. Fyi, it has prompted a mini-colloquy on my blog as to what the Seattle community is / should be doing, in terms of pricing seed rounds or doing notes with caps. http://bit.ly/crkw9X