3% Withholding Repeal and Job Creation Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I rise today in support of S.J. Res. 6, a resolution of disapproval of the FCC's net neutrality order.

Over the last 2 years, the Federal Communications Commission put forward a variety of what are considered net neutrality policies. On September 23 of this year, the FCC published a final rule in the Federal Register which is set to go into effect on November 20 to impose harmful net neutrality regulations on our Nation's telecommunications companies.

The digital world in which we now live has changed dramatically the way we retrieve information, communicate with one another, and engage in commerce. Technological advances, even in the last few years, have pushed our economy forward. These advancements in technology and their adoption often depend heavily on access to broadband technologies.

While the telecommunications industry has flourished, boosted our economy, and made critical investments in broadband deployment across the country, this administration believes that imposing additional regulations is a step in the right direction.

In places across the country, such as my home State of South Dakota, there is still work to be done when it comes to unfettered and affordable access to high speed broadband. With the FCC voting recently to reform the Universal Service Fund to shift to a focus on broadband deployment, it seems to me that simultaneously moving forward with net neutrality regulations will have a chilling effect on this now thriving industry.

We learned last week from the Department of Labor that the unemployment rate still hovers around 9 percent. The American people want to see Federal policies that encourage innovation and spur job growth, not yet another regulatory overreach by an overzealous agency. Unfortunately, the FCC net neutrality policy will give considerable authority to unelected bureaucrats to decide what a company's network management should look like.

The Federal courts have ruled that the FCC lacks the authority under the Telecommunications Act of 1996 to move forward with net neutrality regulations. Still, the Democratic appointees of the FCC have persisted, without regard to the courts, to settle the political debt owed by the Obama administration to special interest groups in favor of regulating the Internet. The FCC and this administration must be brought into line and abide by the separation of powers. The FCC must only execute the responsibilities given to it by Congress and not overreach its regulatory authority.

Freedom of the Internet belongs in the marketplace, not in the hands of Federal regulators. The FCC has moved forward to fix a problem that does not exist. This is a solution in search of a problem. Industry-imposed standards and transparency have the capability to increase competition, while more unnecessary government regulations will almost certainly have the opposite effect.

Under a light regulatory structure, the Internet has become vital to commerce and our Nation's economy over the past 15 years. The Internet has helped digitally shrink the distance that otherwise would inhibit the free flow of ideas, information, and business transactions from one part of the world to another. The Internet's adaptability and decentralized characteristics are central to that success.

This Federal regulatory action represents unnecessary government overreach and has the potential to seriously damage an increasingly important sector of our economy. I do not believe the Federal Government can successfully regulate network access and development without negative effects on the consumer or the industry.

Allowing this unnecessary regulation to move forward has the potential to stifle broadband deployment and competition, which could ultimately lead to fewer choices for consumers, higher prices, and discourage innovation.

I believe the net neutrality regulations, if allowed to move forward, will have negative effects on this industry and our economy, and I would encourage my colleagues, tomorrow, to support this resolution of disapproval.

The economy does not need this. Our job creators do not need this. And the millions of Americans who are benefiting from the information revolution that has been brought about by the Internet do not need this either.

This is an opportunity for us to send a little bit of a message to industry that we understand, we get what they are saying about overregulation, we get that these piles of regulations continue to drive up the cost of doing business in this country.

My colleague, the Presiding Officer, noted in his remarks the need for economic certainty--businesses need to know what the rules are going to be. It seems to me, at least, that creating a whole set of new rules and piling new regulations on this very important medium--on a way in which we have grown commerce in this country, opened markets across the world, created opportunities for consumers in this country to become more productive with their lives--is an absolute wrong approach at this particular point in time, particularly with the unemployment rate being what it is.

We want to make it less expensive, less costly, easier for our job creators to create jobs in this country, not put up unnecessary barriers and more obstacles and drive up the cost and make it more difficult for people in this country to create jobs.

Businesses are looking for economic certainty. They are looking to Washington, DC for policies that will lessen the impediments and the number of obstacles to job creation in this country.

ACCESS TO CAPITAL FOR JOB CREATORS ACT

Mr. President, I also want to mention in that vein that earlier today I introduced a piece of legislation called the Access to Capital for Job Creators Act. This bill will make it easier for small businesses to better access capital in order to expand and create jobs.

If you think about the things the job creators around the country want and need in order for them to get that capital off the sidelines, to get out of cash and to get invested again and get that money back into our economy and back into creating jobs, they want to see a government that lives within its means. They want to see a government that does not spend money it does not have.

We have to be serious about cutting spending here at the Federal level and getting back to more of a historic norm when it comes to the cost of our government as a percentage of our entire economy. Historically, for the past 40 years, that has run in the 20- to 21-percent range. That is what we spend on the Federal Government as a percentage of our entire GDP. Now it is up in the 24- to 25-percent range. That means the Federal Government, as a percentage of our entire economy, is growing relative to our private economy. We want to see the private economy grow and expand and the Federal economy get smaller.

Our job creators also want to see our Tax Code reformed in a way that is simple, clear, and fair, and that provides the right types of incentives for them to create jobs and does not drive investment overseas and create jobs there as opposed to creating those jobs right here at home.

If we can get tax reform that lowers rates on individuals and businesses and broadens the tax base in this country, I think you will see an explosion of economic growth, which is ultimately the best solution we could possibly have to all the fiscal, economic challenges our country faces.

Our job creators want smart, commonsense regulations, not more and more regulation for regulation's sake, which I think is what we see a lot today. We have seen bill after bill that has passed the House of Representatives that is designed to sort of roll back the overregulation, the regulatory overreach we have seen from this administration. Many of those bills have come over here to the Senate, where they have died, unfortunately.

But we need to be looking at these things in a way that will again lower the impediments, lower the barriers, lower the hurdles to job creation in this country. That is why I think smart, commonsense regulation is the way to go, and to get away from the regulatory overreach we are seeing all too much of today.

We need affordable energy policies, opening access to the vast resources we have in this country. We need to open markets around the world and look at ways we can make our small businesses create more opportunities for them to export their products to other places around the world.

But the legislation I have introduced today addresses yet another issue which I think small businesses have talked about; that is, access to capital. We need to better address the need for capital in order to create jobs and expand our economy.

Last week, the House of Representatives passed this very bill. It was introduced by Representative Kevin McCarthy. On a near unanimous vote in the House of Representatives of 413 to 11 they passed this legislation and sent it this direction. This bill would allow small businesses to better attract capital from accredited investors nationwide under rule 506 of Regulation D of the Securities Act of 1933 by removing the general solicitation provision.

That sounds like a lot of Washington speak, and it is. But the very simple translation of that is this will make it easier for small businesses to access the much needed capital they need to expand and grow their businesses.

This provision is a roadblock in its current form for small businesses that are looking to obtain needed capital because it requires investors to have a preexisting relationship with an issuer or intermediary before the potential investor can be notified that unregistered securities are available for sale.

So if a small business is looking for investors, unless they have a preexisting relationship with that investor, there is no way for them to get the message out that they are looking for capital to those with whom they do not have that kind of relationship already in place.

The provision as it currently exists severely hampers the ability of small businesses to obtain needed capital from investors, and as a result, many businesses are limited to only the universe of investors with which they clearly have these preexisting relationships.

This legislation would remove that solicitation prohibition and allow businesses to attract capital from accredited investors nationwide.

With unemployment at 9 percent, we need to pass legislation that will enable our job creators to expand and to create jobs.

As I said, this bill passed with overwhelming bipartisan support in the House of Representatives. I would hope we can do the same in the Senate and address this very fundamental need among our businesses, our small businesses, to get access to much needed capital to expand their businesses; that, along with using a commonsense approach to regulation, an approach that gets away from this massive 61,000 pages of new regulations that we have seen issued since this administration took office, to tax reform that is simple, that is clear, that is fair, that provides incentives to keep jobs here at home as opposed to shipping them overseas, affordable energy policies, reducing government spending, improving export opportunities for our small businesses. Those are the types of policies our job creators have said they need.

We are going to have an opportunity to vote on the rollback of this net neutrality regulation and some other regulations tomorrow that are making it more difficult, more costly for our small businesses to create jobs. I hope we will see strong bipartisan support both with the disapproval resolution that we are going to be voting on net neutrality, as well as the one on cross-State air permitting. Those are both things that I think will do a lot to make it less expensive for small businesses in this country to create jobs.

I hope as well that we will look at other opportunities in the form of the legislation introduced by Senator McCain, Senator Portman, and others, that has a whole series of the things I mentioned, all of which will create jobs and grow our economy, make this country more prosperous and stronger, and put us on a more sound and economic and fiscal footing as we head into the days ahead.

I yield the floor.

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