[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 39 (Wednesday, March 17, 2010)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1639-S1643]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
SMALL BUSINESS
Ms. LANDRIEU. I am pleased to speak as chair of the Small Business
Committee with several of my colleagues from the committee who have
been hard at work coming up with ideas, drafting and passing
legislation in the Small Business Committee over the last 3 months,
particularly to get ready for this time. It is time that this Senate
and Congress moved a third jobs bill with a focus on small business in
America.
I acknowledge the members of the Small Business Committee. Two of
them will join me this morning, and we will all, hopefully, be on the
floor in the next couple of days talking about the importance of
focusing on small business job creation. My ranking member, of course,
is the great Senator from Maine, Ms. Snowe; John Kerry, former chair of
the committee; Chris Bond, former chair; Carl Levin; David Vitter; Tom
Harkin; John Thune; Joe Lieberman; Mike Enzi; Maria Cantwell; Johnny
Isakson; Evan Bayh; Roger Wicker; Mark Pryor; James Risch; Ben Cardin;
Jeanne Shaheen; and Kay Hagan. Let me say that these members have been
extraordinary. We have passed not one, not two, not three, not four,
but five fairly significant pieces of legislation in a completely
bipartisan fashion. The bills I will highlight this morning have been
passed by our committee by large and convincing margins: 18 to 0, 15 to
3, 16 to 4. We are proud of the work we have done.
My call to the Senators this morning is to get our eyes off of Wall
Street and onto Main Street. If we really want to dig out of this
recession, created by a number of things--failed policies from the past
administration, a confluence of the crash of the stock market and the
financial sector, poor regulation from us over time--the people who
have really suffered are the small business owners who, unlike large
businesses and public companies, have put everything at risk--their
future, their house, their children's future--everything at risk to
create business because that is what Americans do, and we do it better
than any country on Earth.
We recognize the strength of American business. It is about
entrepreneurship. That is what the Small Business Committee is focused
on. We want attention--and we will get it--to this issue.
I thank the members for their hard work and support. In this toxic
environment, to get anything out of a committee with that kind of vote,
we deserve a round of applause before we even start. But that is
another story for another day.
Now we have to move the bills through the process. I want to share
this graph, which is telling. Of the share of net new jobs created, 65
percent of the new jobs created by everything we do here will be
created by small business, not by big business. Large firms are
shrinking, reorganizing, sort of waiting for the market to come back. I
understand that. They have a fiduciary responsibility. These folks are
out there taking the big risk. When the way is not clear, when it is
still cloudy, it is small businesses taking a chance that maybe things
will turn around. These are the people we have to get our eyes on.
As chair of the Small Business Committee, I have heard for months
that small businesses want to hire new workers. They need to hire new
workers. They can expand their business, but they don't have the
ability.
Small business owner Ray Meche, who owns several neighborhood
pharmacies in southwest Louisiana, has an excellent track record. He
has been in business for over 20 years. He has never missed a payment.
He can't get a loan because he uses the small business lending program
and he is capped at $2 million. One of our bills would raise that cap
to $5 million. That is something we must do now. Until we do, business
owners such as Ray wait. They wait to get larger loans to expand their
businesses. They wait for a government contract. They wait for
opportunities for counseling as they attempt to boost sales by tapping
into potential markets overseas.
I want to show an export chart which is also telling. When I saw
this, I had my staff use it at every townhall I do because I actually
didn't believe it. I made them go back and do it several times because
it was so contrary to my notion of the world. But it is true. This is
the truth. Of all small businesses in America, of every one we know,
less than 1 percent export their goods out of the country. Think about
that. When the market in America is soft and our businesses are trying
to create jobs, we can do what we can to energize these markets at
home, but we most certainly should be looking overseas. I can tell you
why small businesses would be a little nervous about it. Because they
have never negotiated with big trade representatives China and Korea
and Germany and France. It could be a little intimidating. They have
great products. With the Internet, they have the world at their
fingertips. What they don't have is an export bill by their own
Congress that gives them an opportunity to get the training and
technical assistance through departments we already pay for,
departments that are already set up but just aren't focused on small
business and helping them trade.
I want to see this pie chart expanded. I don't know if we can expand
it to 10 percent of small businesses or 20 percent, but we can't sit at
1 percent while our people lose jobs here. That is why this package is
important.
I thank Senator Shaheen for her extraordinary leadership and also my
ranking member, Senator Snowe, who has spent a great deal of time
talking in the committee and in hearings about the opportunity for
trade. That is what this package does as well.
I want to present the Access to Capital Coalition that is behind us.
We did not come here to the floor alone. We have an extraordinary
coalition for a jobs agenda from small business groups all over
America, from the small business groups represented by the Chamber of
Commerce, to the Federation of Small Business, to the San Francisco
Small Business Network, to the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce,
the Marin Builders Association, the Main Street Alliance, just to read
a few, Oregon Small Business for Responsible Leadership.
This list represents hundreds of thousands of businesses that say to
me every day: Senator, does anybody know we are here? Every day we pick
up the paper and we read about AIG, Goldman Sachs, General Motors,
Exxon. We think those companies are great. We hope maybe to be as big
as they are one day. But does anybody know we are here?
I know you are there. We are going to fight hard for you, and we are
going to pull this coalition together to focus on the one group of
people in America who can actually create jobs, which would be the
small businesses, found in every neighborhood, on every Main Street, in
urban areas, suburban areas. And, yes,
[[Page S1640]]
even rural areas can create the kind of jobs we need to lift this
Nation out of the worst recession since the Great Depression.
I say to the Presiding Officer, you were a banker. You understand the
importance of lending money to small businesses and getting it to them
when they need it quickly. You established extraordinary opportunities
in your home State of Illinois. That is what this package of bills does
that has passed out of the Small Business Committee and is pending for
action in this Senate.
Small businesses have borne the greatest burden in this economy. They
are the business that have the greatest potential to improve it. By
making these simple, inexpensive, and commonsense proposals to help
small businesses, we can turn pink slips into paychecks for American
workers, and we can lift our entire Nation out of this terrible
recession into a brighter day in the future.
So, again, I thank my colleagues on the committee for working in such
a bipartisan manner.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record
an outline of the five bills that make up this package, S. 2869, the
Small Business Job Creation and Access to Capital Act; S. 2862, the
Small Business Export Enhancement and International Trade Act; S. 2989,
the Small Business Contracting Improvement Act; S. 1229, the
Entrepreneurial Development Act; and S. 1233 the SBIR/STTR
Reauthorization Act.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
ADDRESSING SMALL BUSINESS NEEDS TO CREATE JOBS
S. 2869, the Small Business Job Increases 7(a) loans limits from $2
Creation and Access to Capital million to $5 million; 504 loans
Act of 2009. (Landrieu/Snowe). from $1.5 million to $5.5 million,
and microloans from $35,000 to
$50,000.
Allows the 504 loan program to
refinance short-term commercial
real estate debt into long-term,
fixed rate loans.
Extends the authorization to provide
90 percent guarantees on 7(a) loans
and fee elimination for borrowers
on 7(a) and 504 loans through
December 31, 2010.
CBO Score: $23 million over six
years--loan limit increase and
refinance programs are budget
neutral.
Passed the Committee on December 17,
2009. Vote of 17-1.
SBA has estimated the loan increase
would increase lending to small
businesses by $5 billion the 1st
year.
S. 2862, the Small Business Export Improves the SBA's trade and export
Enhancement and International finance programs.
Trade Act of 2009. (Snowe/ Elevates the Office of International
Landrieu). Trade within the SBA and adds
export finance specialists to the
SBA's trade counseling programs.
Establishes the State Export
Promotion Grant Program (STEP),
which would increase the number of
small businesses that export.
Improves coordination between
federal and state agencies and SBA
resource partners.
CBO Score: $69 million over six
years.
Passed the Committee on December 17,
2009. Vote of 18-0.
Leverages more than $1 billion in
export capital for small
businesses, creating/saving as many
as 40,000-50,000 jobs in 2010.
S. 2989, the Small Business Closes loopholes in bundling.
Contracting Improvement Act of Eases payment concerns for
2010 (Landrieu/Snowe). subcontractors.
Eases restrictions on teaming
agreements and JV arrangements so
small businesses have an
opportunity to go after larger
contracts.
CBO Score: TBD
Passed the Committee on March 4.
Vote was unanimous.
Increasing contracts to small
businesses by just 1 percent can
create more than 100,000 jobs.
S. 1229, the Entrepreneurial Reauthorizes for three years and
Development Act of 2009. strengthens the SBA's counseling
(Landrieu/Snowe). programs: Small Business
Development Centers, Women's
Business Centers, SCORE, the
Program for Investment in
Microentrepreneurs (PRIME).
Creates initiatives to increase
business opportunities for veterans
and Native Americans.
CBO Score: $614 million over five
years.
Passed the Committee on July 2,
2009. Vote of 18-0.
Estimated to creating/saving more
than 190,000 jobs in 2010.
S. 1233, the SBIR/STTR Reauthorizes the SBIR and STTR
Reauthorization Act of 2009. programs for eight years.
(Landrieu/Snowe). Increases the allocation from 2.5 to
3.5 percent over ten years for the
SBIR program.
Increases from .3 to .6 percent for
the STTR program.
Adjusts the awards sizes for
inflation and caps jumbo awards.
Makes eligible a certain percentage
of SBIR projects for firms majority
owned and controlled by multiple
venture capital firms.
CBO Score: $229 million over five
years.
Passed the Committee on July 2,
2009. Vote of 18-0.
Estimated to provide more than $2
billion in R&D funding for public-
private partnerships between the
government and small, high-
technology firms and to create more
than 500 new small businesses a
year.
Ms. LANDRIEU. We will take them up, hopefully, in a package at a
later date, but I want to call my colleagues' attention to the package
of bills that will expand loan limits, expand contracting opportunities
with the Federal Government, which, by the way, spends billions of
dollars right now with business. If we just spend a little bit more
with small business, these small businesses--instead of absorbing the
contracts, which the big businesses do--will have to hire up.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 30 more seconds.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Ms. LANDRIEU. Small businesses, when they get a contract from the
Federal Government, will staff up because that is what small businesses
do. They are very flexible. They are very agile. They will scale down,
and they can scale up quickly.
So I am proud of this package. I want to recognize two of my members
who are on the Senate floor: former Governor and now a Senator from New
Hampshire, Jeanne Shaheen, who has been a great leader on this issue--I
thank you, Senator--and also Senator Ben Cardin from Maryland. He has
been a particularly strong leader on the contracting for small
businesses. So I would like to ask the Senator to join me in her
remarks this morning.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire is recognized.
Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in
morning business.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, I am so pleased to join Chairman
Landrieu and my colleague, Senator Ben Cardin. Hopefully, he will be
able to speak after me to talk about the importance of small businesses
and what we have to do to support small business in this country.
Small businesses in New Hampshire and across the country, as Senator
Landrieu has said, are struggling. Of
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the jobs lost last year, almost 40 percent came from businesses with 50
or fewer employees. While we have taken important steps to bring back
the economy from the brink of depression, sales and consumer demand are
still too low and too many small business owners remain frozen out of
credit markets.
This economy is not going to fully recover until our small businesses
fully recover. In the past, it has been small businesses that have
created most of the jobs coming out of a recession, and this recovery
is going to be no different. If we want to see job growth in this
country, we need to take action to help small businesses get back on
their feet.
Now, as a former small business owner, I know it is business and not
government that creates jobs and drives innovation and new ideas. But I
also know government has an important role to play in helping small
business create jobs, especially in these very difficult economic
times.
Under the leadership of our chair, Senator Landrieu, who has done a
great job, along with our ranking member, Senator Snowe, in the last
several months the Small Business Committee has produced five major
pieces of legislation to help small companies create jobs again, and
Senator Landrieu has laid those out for people. I am proud to be a
sponsor of all five of these bills.
They spur research and innovation. They ensure small businesses get
their fair share of government contracts. They expand SBA lending
programs so small businesses can obtain affordable credit. They
strengthen the technical services the SBA can provide. And they help
small businesses gain access to international markets to sell their
goods and services.
These bills, as we have heard Senator Landrieu say, are bipartisan
efforts that passed the committee with nearly unanimous votes from both
Republican and Democratic members. I hope we are soon going to see
these bills on the floor of the Senate and that they will pass
unanimously.
All of the bills are important. But today I want to focus on what we
can do to help open global markets to small business because I strongly
believe that in order to have a sustained recovery from this recession,
we need to expand exports. Domestic consumer demand in the United
States simply will not rise to the level it was before the recession.
The good news is that the potential for export growth is enormous.
Over 95 percent of the world's customers live outside of the United
States. But as we saw so dramatically on that chart Senator Landrieu
just showed, only about 1 percent of small businesses export their
goods and services, and small companies that do export usually only
sell to one foreign market, while larger companies typically sell to
five or more foreign markets.
Emerging markets in developing countries such as China, India, and
Brazil offer great opportunities for growth. By 2020, about 90 percent
of the world's population will live in emerging markets. There is a
huge potential for smaller companies to tap these markets to grow their
businesses and to create jobs.
I have long been an advocate for exporting because international
markets are very important to New Hampshire. I was the first Governor
to lead a trade mission from New Hampshire overseas, and those trade
missions I led brought back about $500 million in sales for New
Hampshire businesses.
Small business generates almost half of New Hampshire's total
exports, and we have some great success stories.
Dartware, a software developer in West Lebanon, on the western side
of our State, first started exporting to Canada--which neighbors New
Hampshire, for those people who are not sure on their geography. Now
they sell to more than 80 countries. During this recession, exporting
has made a huge difference on their bottom line. Last year, their
international sales were 33 percent of their total sales. This past
January, export sales represented 63 percent or almost double their
total sales.
Another company, a small business called Sky-Skan, in Nashua, designs
and produces state-of-the-art technologies for planetariums. You would
not think there would be that many planetariums around the world, but
they have exported their products and services to over 120 countries.
Even in the midst of one of the most difficult economies in our
Nation's history, Sky-Skan was able to bring on 10 new employees.
In his State of the Union speech, President Obama set a goal of
doubling American exports in the next 5 years. He recently signed an
executive order creating an Export Promotion Cabinet. I strongly
support those efforts. I know other members of the Small Business
Committee do as well.
A recent World Bank study found that each dollar spent on export
promotion and assistance brought a fortyfold return. Right now, the
United States spends considerably less than the international average
in helping small businesses export. Government export promotion and
assistance is a smart investment that helps create jobs. One of the
important actions we need to take in the Senate to help improve export
promotion is to quickly enact the Small Business Export Enhancement and
International Trade Act of 2009--one of those five pieces of
legislation Senator Landrieu laid out.
We need to make the SBA a more valuable resource for small businesses
looking to export their goods and services, and this bill does just
that. I hope as these bills come to the floor of the Senate, we will
take a close look and we will recognize that if we are going to help
small businesses export, then we have to give them the tools to do
that. This legislation does that. It helps small companies finance
their exports by increasing loan limits and guarantees in SBA export
loan programs and expanding the number of SBA finance specialists who
are posted around the country.
This bill directs the SBA to collaborate more with other agencies
that provide services and programs for small exporters--something the
SBA has begun doing under the leadership of Administrator Karen Mills.
More U.S. exports abroad mean more jobs at home. We can and must do
more. We must do it smarter to help small companies compete globally.
If we do not, we risk falling behind, and our economy, our businesses,
and our families will lose out.
Mr. President, I yield the floor and look forward to hearing from my
colleague, Senator Cardin.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland is recognized.
Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, I also ask unanimous consent to speak as
in morning business as part of the comments made by Senator Landrieu
and Senator Shaheen.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, we are here today to talk about the
importance of job creation in our economy. We all know we need to
create jobs. The way to create jobs is to help small businesses. Too
much of the focus over the last couple years has been in helping the
large companies, the large banks. We need to focus on small companies
in order to create new job opportunities for Americans.
I compliment Senator Shaheen for her comments. She is absolutely
right. Small businesses can create many jobs in the United States by
creating products that are wanted around the globe. The problem is, it
is very complicated for a small business owner to have the type of
staff to deal with the difficulties of entering the international
marketplace.
Senator Shaheen pointed out very clearly that the legislation Senator
Landrieu has been instrumental in bringing forward in the Small
Business Committee that deals with enhancing international trade for
small companies, S. 2862, will provide more jobs in America by helping
smaller companies be able to get their products into the international
marketplace. That makes common sense.
As I said in the beginning, we need to create more jobs. Senator
Landrieu, in her leadership on the Small Business Committee, has made
that our top priority, and I congratulate her for bringing this to our
attention.
We know over 50 percent--over 50 percent--of private sector jobs are
with small companies. We know 64 percent of the net new jobs during the
past 15 years have come from small companies. That is where the job
growth will be. We are talking about creating jobs. We create more jobs
through small companies, but we have to help them because they have
many obstacles
[[Page S1642]]
today to be able to create those new jobs.
Forty percent of high-tech workers work for small companies. This is
a very interesting statistic. There are 13 times more patents per
employee in small companies than in larger companies. Innovation comes
from our smaller companies. It does not mean we ignore larger
companies. They have opportunities small companies do not have. But if
we are going to create the jobs and innovation, we have to have a
healthy atmosphere for small businesses today, and we need to do a
better job.
What is the problem? Problem No. 1 is credit. Small companies cannot
get traditional credit. Many large banks have just closed out giving
loans to small companies. I can tell you of the calls I have gotten in
my office, the letters I have gotten. There is a high-tech company
located in Hunt Valley, MD. It is a small business that cannot get a
bank to make a refinancing loan so that high-tech company can expand.
They are doing very well. Their customer base would be very familiar to
many of the Members of the Senate. But they cannot get a bank to be
their partner in this environment because they are a small company.
As a result, many small companies, many small businesses resort to
the use of their personal credit cards--their personal credit cards--in
order to finance their business. One-third of small companies have over
25 percent of their overall debt from credit cards. Fifty percent of
small businesses' interests rates are 15 percent or higher. That is not
sustainable. You can't run a business based upon that type of
financing. We have to do much better in that regard.
That is why I was particularly pleased by S. 2869, which Chairman
Landrieu has brought forward with Senator Snowe, that would strengthen
the SBA's capacity to make credit available to small businesses. It
would increase the 7(a) loan program. The 7(a) loans are the
traditional loans small businesses get in order to finance their
operations. It would increase the amount from $2 million to $5 million
and continue the 90-percent Federal guarantee. The 504 loans, which are
used primarily for bricks and mortar, would increase from $1.5 million
to $5.5 million. The microloans, which give a business the opportunity
for working capital so they can move forward with an innovation and an
idea and create jobs, increase from $35,000 to $50,000. That tells us
how important that is to a small business. That extra $15,000 can be
the difference between developing an idea to create jobs or not.
I congratulate Chairman Landrieu for bringing forward that
legislation. It passed our committee by a 17-to-1 vote. This is a
strong bipartisan bill that we hope will be made permanent.
I think we need to do more. I have introduced legislation that
follows in the direction of the President. President Obama has
suggested we take some of the TARP funds and use it to help community
banks make loans to small businesses. I think we should look at having
direct loans by the SBA to small businesses, certainly as a backup, if
the private sector is not going to show enough interest to help our
small businesses.
I know there are other suggestions to help our States. Governor
O'Malley has suggested a program that could use some additional Federal
support and get money out quickly to small businesses for credit. We
need to focus on that because there is a credit crisis for small
businesses. We need to be able to do better than we are doing today if
we are going to be able to create jobs. In every State in the Nation, I
know my colleagues have heard from their small business owners that
they can't get affordable credit. We need to act in order to bring us
out of this current economic downturn.
There are other bills I wish to mention briefly. Chairman Landrieu
mentioned the bill I have been involved with, S. 2989, the Small
Business Contracting Improvement Act. Small businesses depend upon
government procurement as an effort to get started and to grow. The
problem is, there is this cozy relationship between procurement
officers and larger companies, so they have developed into practices
that have hurt small companies in being able to get the set-asides that
we in Congress said they should get. So what the contractor for the
government agency does is bundle a lot of contracts that should be
offered individually, but they bundle them to make them too large for
small businesses to be able to bid on. This legislation deals with the
abuses of bundling. I congratulate our chair for bringing that forward.
It also deals with the abuses between subcontractors and prime
contractors. It is no surprise to anyone here that small businesses are
more likely to be subs. Well, we don't have transparency and openness
and timely payments to the subs. The prime contractor is abusing
privileges, and we have a responsibility to make sure the law is
carried out with the set-asides to small businesses in our procurement
policies. This legislation, which passed our committee by a unanimous
vote earlier this month, I think will go a long way to helping small
businesses create jobs in our community.
There is other legislation that is out there to strengthen the SBA
counseling program that Chairman Landrieu mentioned. I think that is an
important bill. It passed our committee by a 19-to-0 vote--again,
strong bipartisan support.
There is another program I wish to mention quickly, because during
the Recovery Act there should have been funds set aside for the SBIR/
STTR programs. They were not. We have spoken about that before in this
body. The legislation that passed our committee by an 18-to-0 vote
would increase the allocations for the SBIR and STTR programs, which
are high-tech set-asides for small high-tech companies, which help us
develop innovation technology here in America, keeping jobs in America
and expanding jobs in America. It would increase that set-aside from a
modest 2.5 percent to 3.5 percent. It passed our committee by an 18-to-
0 vote.
These are all important bills that I hope we will have an opportunity
to take up shortly as we look at the next jobs bill. I hope these
provisions can be incorporated into legislation we consider. This is
bipartisan. I think all my colleagues understand we have to create more
job opportunities in America. The way to do it is to help small
businesses deal with their current needs.
I will mention one other bill before yielding the floor; that is, the
health care bill which will help small businesses. The problem I used
to hear the most from my small businesses was about paying health care
costs. Now I hear credit. Credit is their No. 1 problem. But we provide
a credit--Senator Landrieu was helpful in getting this started
earlier--to our small businesses so they can afford to provide health
care for their employees. I thank Senator Landrieu for that provision.
That is going to help small companies and help job growth.
We also created the exchanges. These are the exchanges where a small
company can go in and buy health insurance policies. I can't tell my
colleagues how many times I have heard from a small business owner
saying: I am getting ripped off. I have no choice with an insurance
plan I can take. I have a 30-percent increase, a 40-percent increase in
premiums. My employees' health didn't deteriorate. Our costs didn't go
up by that, but I have no choice. There is no other company I can get a
policy with.
Well, under health reform, we provide options and choice and
competition for the small business owner. Today, they are paying, on
average, 20 percent more than large companies pay for comparable
insurance coverage for their employees. That practice needs to end. We
shouldn't be discriminating against small businesses in America, and we
take major steps forward to eliminate that discrimination.
These are all things we can do to create jobs in America, to help our
small businesses, help our Nation, help our recovery, and help us grow
as a nation, to be even more competitive, offering good jobs to the
people in our communities who are seeking employment.
With that, let me yield the remainder of my time to the chairman of
the Small Business Committee, the Senator from Louisiana.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana.
Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, again, I thank my colleagues both, and
particularly Senator Cardin, for that impassioned plea to focus this
place on small business. If we are serious about
[[Page S1643]]
creating jobs, then our focus, our effort, our work should be for the
millions of small businesses out there that with just a little bit of
tweaking, a little bit of help from an export initiative here, some
regulation reform here, loan pools here, changing current law, could
help them do what they want to do, which is expand and grow jobs.
I see my colleagues are here to speak, so I am just going to take 1
minute to conclude.
I wish my colleagues to know that while this package is five major
bills, there is an initiative that is not in bill form yet, but we are
very serious about bringing it forward. It is going to include a
provision for there to be a pool of capital available. It may be the
way Senator Cardin has envisioned it, which is direct loans from the
SBA. It may be the way Senator Levin and Senator Warner have been
talking about, which is an idea to provide guaranteed loan pools to
leverage private capital in the country. It may be something Bill
Clinton spoke with us about yesterday, which is creating a dynamic new
opportunity to retrofit public buildings in America and put people to
work and use the savings in energy efficiency to pay back the loans so
there is no new taxpayer money spent. It is leveraging the private
sector to do two great things: provide jobs immediately and make more
efficient every public building in America.
There is more we can do. So as the chairman, let me be very clear. I
am very proud of this package. It is five bills. It has passed our
committee almost unanimously. As we move this package to the floor, I
hope we will get the same cooperation from Republican Members on this
floor as we did from the Republican Members who serve on our committee.
We have been very open, very sincere in our efforts to pull this
package together, and we will continue to work in that good spirit. I
hope we are met with that same feeling.
Two more things, briefly. I am probably not going to push to put in
this bill a reform piece on credit cards to small businesses because it
is not the jurisdiction of our committee; it is primarily the
jurisdiction of the Banking Committee. However, I want this Senate to
know I am on record today. Senator Cardin says--and he is correct--how
in the world are small businesses in America going to stay in business
if they have to pay 15 and 20 percent interest rates? Could anybody
tell me this? Is there any small business in America that thinks they
can make money, hire people, and pay 20 percent interest rates? It is a
shame. It is wrong. We are going to do something about small business
credit card rates. I will tell my colleagues why. Because in the old
days, not too long ago when the housing market was strong, which it is
not today, Americans--who believe in the American dream because we tell
them about it when they are 4 years old and they actually believe it
when they grow up--their house had $200,000 or $300,000 or $400,000 or
$50,000 in equity. So when they wanted to start a business, they went
to their banker and their banker said: How much equity do you have in
your house? They said: $50,000. They wrote them a check that day for
$20,000. They took that amount of money and they bought a stove and
they started a business, maybe cooking a little scrambled eggs and ham.
Those days are over with. There is no equity in their homes anymore.
When they go to their bank, they don't see a sign that says welcome--
and I am not talking about community banks, I am talking about big
banks that got all the money from us--they see a sign that says come
back next year when things are better. So they have to then dig in
their pocket and pull out their credit card. We have done them a great
favor. We allow the companies to charge them not 3 percent, not 6
percent, not 10 percent but 20 percent.
I can't put that bill in this package, but I promise my colleagues it
is coming. We cannot ask small business to pay 20 percent on their
loans. Yes, we have to give them tax relief. But do my colleagues know
what they need right now? They need borrowing relief.
So I am going to conclude with that. It is going to be a good
package, and we are going to be very smart about how we put it forward.
I know we have to take the tough things maybe separately so as to not
detain this. But I am on record, and we are going to fight for it until
we get it done.
I yield the floor. I thank the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.
Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to address the
Senate as in morning business.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, before I get into the main topic, I
obviously appreciate the passion of the Senator from Louisiana. It is
unfortunate that she and the majority on the other side refuse to vote
for the most important thing we could have done immediately for small
business; that is, give them payroll tax relief and take the money out
of the stimulus package, so much of which is being wasted on issues
such as Davis-Bacon and environmental impact statements. We ought to
give small businesses payroll tax relief immediately.
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