Small Business Lending Fund Act Of 2010

Floor Speech

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Mr. DURBIN. I thank Senator Landrieu, who chairs the Small Business Committee. Not only does she have the facts, she has the tenacity and ferocity to take on these issues. You always want Mary Landrieu on your team. Like Senator Boxer, there are times when we are not on the same team. Thank goodness they are rare. But when we are together I know it is going to be a spirited fight and I am glad to join her in this effort. I thank her and Senator Cantwell, but I also acknowledge, as she has, that Senators MERKLEY and Boxer were involved in the early formulation of this idea.

The idea was so obvious, it was so obvious that we knew when we spoke to small businesses the struggle they were having. They couldn't borrow money. Even good, reputable small businesses with great records could not borrow money. When they couldn't borrow money, it was impossible for them to sustain their business growth and to hire people.

In America, as we have lost 8 million jobs, with all the hardship and heartache that comes with it, we faced some hard choices. This week, the Senate and the House finally, after weeks of filibustering, came through with unemployment benefits for the millions of Americans who are struggling to feed their families during these hard times. That to me is the safety net. But if we are going to go beyond the safety net and create the jobs to put people back to work and get beyond this debate on unemployment benefits, we have to look to small business.

I heard the Senator from Louisiana talk about her view of small business and job creation. This bill that is before us, this amendment that Senator Landrieu brings before us today, is one that will create jobs in my home State of Illinois.

There were over 258,000 small business employers in Illinois in 2006, led by professional service and construction firms. These small businesses accounted for over 98 percent of the employers in my State. These small businesses added 93,000 jobs in 2006, more than three times as many as those by companies with more than 500 employees. Another 850,000 people worked for themselves in 2006, meaning the number of people working for small businesses was that much larger.

I am concerned about every firm losing jobs, but I know if we do not address the fundamental challenge facing small business, we are not going to turn this recession around quickly and that is what we all need to do and want to do.

What I struggle to understand, I will say to the Senator from Louisiana--perhaps she can answer this question: Where is the opposition to this? Where is the opposition? The Senator has read comments from the National Federation of Independent Businesses, a conservative business group. I have worked with them. Many times we lock horns but we have worked together on health care and things. So where does the opposition to this come from?

Don't we know if we take this money and loan it to small businesses it will be repaid? It has a leverage, a multiplier in terms of what it can mean to our economy, creating jobs, which means more taxes being paid, more people earning money with paychecks. I am trying to understand. Have people come to the floor on the other side of the aisle and explained why we would not want to provide credit for small businesses in the middle of a recession to help create jobs? I wish to ask the Senator if she would respond, through the Chair.

Ms. LANDRIEU. We have had three Senators come to the floor. The Senator, the ranking member of the committee is here now, Senator Snowe. I have the greatest respect for the Senator. She outlined a few points that she has concerns about. I will come back to that in a minute.

There were only two other Senators who came to the floor--the Senator from Alabama and the Senator from South Dakota. From what I could gather, they think--the Senators said they thought this was sort of like TARP.

I tried to explain to them that, first of all, TARP was a $700 billion fund for banks that had troubled assets. This is a $30 billion fund for healthy banks to lend to small business. There were lots of bankers opposed to TARP. I tried to say to them in this case every banking organization that we know of, national organization, and the majority of the State bankers--not all; I want to be clear--the majority are all for it. So we are having a difficult time.

There may be some questions about the cost. It gets into a lot of detail. The Senator from Maine raised that issue. Our score, I said, is what I go by. The Senator knows it will generate $1.1 billion for this program.

Mr. DURBIN. If I can reclaim my time--I have a limited amount of time--thank you, because that addresses the issue. The fact is that this money will generate money to the Federal Treasury so it is not adding to our debt, it is creating jobs, helping businesses, reducing our deficit, and I might add--I am glad you made a reference to TARP. According to the Treasury Department, the 22 largest recipients of TARP dollars, banks, decreased their small business lending by $12.5 billion between April and November of 2009.

Here we are in TARP sending money to bail out the biggest banks and they are reducing their loans to small businesses as a result of it. What the Senator is saying, as I understand it, what this amendment is, is take this money, give it to healthy banks with the understanding it will be loaned to small businesses, they will prosper, create jobs, more taxpayers, fewer people on unemployment, and a net gain to the Treasury?

Ms. LANDRIEU. Yes.

Mr. DURBIN. This does not sound like TARP at all to me.

Ms. LANDRIEU. It is not. The Senator is absolutely correct. That is why I spent the majority of this day trying to be responsive to the several arguments that have been raised against it. I thought the Senator from Oregon did a beautiful job, much better than I did, explaining the nuances of this report that has been used to criticize this program.

But again, it is a private sector approach which the other side usually likes. It is community bankers whom we know, to small businesses that we know need the help. I cannot quite understand where this opposition is coming from. I said earlier, if you are looking for a bumper sticker for the election, go look elsewhere. Don't put a bumper sticker on the backs of small business in America. They don't deserve it. The letters are heartbreaking. The letters from Illinois are heartbreaking.

Women who have waited for 20 years while they raised their children finally start their business and I have to hear from the other side they don't like the bumper sticker? This is not about bumper stickers. We have waited a year and a half to get on a bill for small business. The House has already passed this bill.

It is laughable, to try to go home to your district. I don't care whether you are in Arizona or South Dakota or Alabama, you will be laughed out of the townhall meeting if you go home and try to explain that you don't think small business should get money from their local bank. They don't have the money to buy a train ticket to New York.

I mean, this is not funny. So unless somebody comes down here and gives me a relatively good argument--and I have the greatest respect for the Senator from Maine. We have never argued about anything on our committee. This didn't even come to our committee so we never argued about it. We have not argued about one thing because we feel so strongly. But for some reason this has become a political football. She did not make it that way and neither did I. Somebody did, but neither one of us did.

Mr. DURBIN. If the Senator from Louisiana will allow me to reclaim my time and finish and yield the floor at this point, I thank her for her passion and commitment. Around here we go through so many issues and debates, it sounds as if people are reading telephone directories and don't care, but there occasionally comes along an issue where it does touch you. You can tell from the Senator from Louisiana, she feels this issue--as she should. These are real people, who put their all into a business, who are about to lose it. These are real people who think their businesses can grow with a little bit of help and hire some people. Instead, what we hear from the other side is we are afraid somebody is going to twist this into a bumper sticker that will look bad.

I used to have a friend of mine named Mike Synar, from Oklahoma. We used to laugh when Members of the House of Representatives would say, ``Man, I hope we don't have to vote on that tough issue again.'' He said, ``If you don't want to fight fires, don't be a firefighter. If you don't want to come to Congress and vote on tough issues, get another job somewhere else.'' I think he was right. He is still right. If these people are afraid of helping small businesses for fear that somebody is going to dream up a bumper sticker and a 30-second ad, think about another job. Because if we can't face issues this important in the middle of a recession and help small businesses with the Landrieu amendment, then we have lost our way.

I am glad to support the Senator, and I yield the floor.

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