Executive Calendar

Floor Speech

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Ms. ERNST. Mr. President, our Nation's economy is booming. Last Friday's jobs report far exceeded anyone's expectations. It showed that we added 263,000 jobs last month and that unemployment was sitting at the lowest since 1969. At the backbone of it all are our small businesses.

Just look at my home State of Iowa, where 99 percent of our businesses are small businesses. With our State's economy continuing to grow and our unemployment amongst the lowest in the Nation, it is clear that our small businesses' success is Iowa's success. These job creators in our State are leading the way by finding innovative solutions and creating new opportunities for our workforce. Too often, small businesses struggle to comply with some of the most costly and burdensome regulations that come out of Washington, DC.

As a way to rein in these regulations and to foster a more thoughtful rulemaking process, this week, I reintroduced my PROVE IT Act. This bipartisan legislation gives the Small Business Administration's Office of Advocacy an opportunity to ask Agencies to prove their regulatory analyses when proposing a rule that may be economically harmful to small businesses. It gives Iowa's small businesses a voice in the rulemaking process.

One increasingly important component of our country's labor market is women-owned small businesses. Iowa ranks in the top 10 for growth in employment and revenues in women-owned businesses. However, these businesses still face many challenges. That is why I recently introduced the Expanding Contracting Opportunities for Small Businesses Act, which addresses the discrepancy in sole-source manufacturing contracts that puts women-owned small businesses at a disadvantage. This bipartisan bill is a sensible and simple fix to help ensure all of Iowa's small business owners get a fair shot at competing and succeeding.

Commonsense deregulation, coupled with tax reform, has helped to fuel economic growth and has contributed to high levels of consumer and business confidence. Yet, folks, there is still a lot of work to be done. While many of Iowa's small businesses would absolutely love to provide their employees with the option of having paid parental leave, it is just far too costly. That is one reason I am working with Senator Mike Lee on a proposal that would allow new moms and dads who work at one of these small businesses the opportunity to receive paid parental leave.

As a member of the Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee, I am excited to celebrate National Small Business Week and to continue fighting for pro-growth policies and a regulatory system that encourages innovation and job growth--one in which Iowa's small businesses are heard loud and clear. As I have said before, when Iowa's small businesses are successful, Iowa also succeeds.

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