Small Business Jobs and Credit Act of 2010
Floor Speech
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Mr. HOYER. I appreciate the gen tle lady from Illinois (Ms. Bean) for yielding.
I want to first thank the chair of the Small Business Committee, Congresswoman Velázquez, for the work that she has done on this bill and for others who have worked on this bill.
As I'm sure has been said many times on this floor but bears repeating, small businesses are the job-creating engine of our economy. They employ more than half of all employees in the private sector, and they've created 64 percent of net new jobs over the past 15 years. So ensuring that small businesses have the resources they need to keep innovating, growing and creating jobs is essential if we're going to sustain the economic recovery. And small businesses have been at the heart of Democrats' recovery strategy ever since this Congress convened in the midst of the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression, indeed, the deepest recession we've seen in three-quarters of a century.
The Recovery Act, which cut taxes for 98 percent of Americans and is responsible for some 2 million jobs, gave small businesses tax credits for hiring many unemployed workers and helped them make the capital investments that are essential to their growth. Since the Recovery Act, we've expanded Small Business Administration lending, created further tax credits for hiring unemployed workers, and offered immediate and long-term tax credits to help small businesses afford employee health care. And yesterday, the House passed the Small Business Jobs Tax Relief Act, which will exempt 100 percent of small business capital gains from taxation and increase the amount of startup expenses small business owners can deduct from their taxes, all designed to allow small businesses to grow and expand. That means more investment in small businesses, and more entrepreneurs willing and able to start businesses of their own and hire workers to staff it.
Today, ladies and gentlemen of the House, we can take another step to help small businesses and workers, establishing a $30 billion fund to expand lending to small businesses looking to make new investments in growth at no cost to the taxpayer. Ladies and gentlemen, I know that those of you who have been not only in your own districts but in your States and throughout the country know that every small businessman and -woman in America who wants to expand has a singular complaint, and that is that they cannot access capital. That's what this bill is about. This bill, the Small Business Lending Fund Act, invests capital in community and small banks that were not the problem that caused this financial meltdown, investing in those community and small banks under terms that become more favorable to those banks as they make more loans to small businesses. In other words, carrots for giving money to small business.
The CBO tells us that all of the money in the Small Business Lending Fund will be repaid with interest and that taxpayers will actually make $1 billion profit over the next decade. Now, that's not too hard to believe, I think, when you understand that in terms of the dollars that the Bush administration asked us to put on the table to stabilize the economy back in 2008, that to the extent that the money has now been paid back--not all of it yet--but to the extent that we have gotten repayment, we have made some 12 percent on that money. Unfortunately, 45 percent of small businesses seeking loans to expand or even just stay afloat were turned down last year, and you can imagine how those denials led directly to unemployment.
This bill, ladies and gentlemen of the House, can go a long way towards opening up the flow of credit that helps create jobs. That's what this is about, allowing small businesses to expand, grow their businesses, hire more people, pay good salaries and benefits, and get our economy moving. I urge my colleagues to support this bill and to help our small businesses create jobs. I want to congratulate once again the chair of the Small Business Committee, Nydia Velázquez, for her leadership. I thank Ms. Bean from Illinois for her leadership on these issues, and I thank our Republican friends, who I hope will join us in supporting this effort to make sure that small businesses have the capital they need to grow our economy.
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