Small Business Lending Fund Act of 2010

Floor Speech

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Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, when the health care reform bill passed, the Speaker of the House famously said: We have to pass this bill so we can figure out what is in it.

Well, what more and more Americans are finding when they look at what is in it are things they do not like. This is becoming increasingly less popular over time, and one of the most egregious provisions in this bill is this 1099 provision.

The Senator from Iowa is worried about making sure more people have access to health care. We all are. Well, the best way for most Americans to get access to health care, because most Americans still get their health care coverage through their employers, the best way to get health care coverage is to get a job. This provision kills jobs.

This is directly targeted at small businesses, the economic engine, the job creators in America today. So what the Senator from Nebraska is trying to do is to correct this by repealing this onerous compliance burden that we are placing on the small businesses of this country. It is not the tax delinquents who get hurt by this, it is the hard-working small businesses. It is the charities. It is the government agencies who have to deal with this burdensome paperwork.

That, I think, is why we have so many organizations. We have agricultural organizations such as the American Farm Bureau, the Corn Growers, the Soybean Growers, the Cattlemen, and go right down the list. We have small business organizations such as the Chamber of Commerce, the National Federation of Independent Business, the National Association of Manufacturers, the National Association of Home Builders, the International Food Service Distributors, the Restaurant Association, and the Associated General Contractors that support repeal because it would hurt both their employees and their bottom line.

We even have government organizations such as the National Association of Towns and Townships, which represents local governments. They support repeal because it would force cities and communities to keep track of every purchase they make whether it be cement, snowplows, or pencils. This is a ridiculous requirement that we are imposing, in many cases, on small businesses, on small charities, on small organizations, and local governments.

I can tell you from personal experience, in my State this is something they cannot comply with and cannot deal with. So if we are worried about job creation in this country, if we are worried about economic growth, this is absolutely the wrong way to go about promoting it.

What the Johanns amendment does is repeal this provision. It does it in a fiscally responsible way. It is offset, it is paid for, and it makes sense. I hope my colleagues will vote for this commonsense amendment because whether this was an intended consequence or an unintended consequence, this is absolutely disastrous for small businesses across this country, and it is essential that we get this part of the health care reform bill repealed.

There are many others I think we are probably going to be talking about before this is all said and done because, as I said, the more people read the fine print in this legislation, the more they come to the realization of how bad this is for small businesses and for job creation in this country.

So I would urge all of my colleagues to vote for the Johanns amendment and to repeal this onerous provision.

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