[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 104 (Wednesday, July 14, 2010)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5797-S5798]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        SMALL BUSINESS JOBS BILL

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, my friend the majority leader mentioned 
the small business jobs bill. I recently had an opportunity to talk to 
Senator Snowe, who is the author of that legislation. I assured her we 
are anxious to move forward. I appreciate his bringing up the 
discussion we have been having about reaching a consent agreement that 
would allow us to expedite the bill. I know my friend from Nevada 
shares my view that small business is an area that needs attention. We 
are going to continue to try to come to agreement to move forward with 
that very important piece of legislation which I support and I believe 
most Members of my conference do as well.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, as I have said before, this legislation is 
bipartisan. Most of the bill has been crafted in the past when Senator 
Snowe was chairman of the Small Business Committee. I am glad to hear 
my friend Senator Snowe has had a conversation with the Republican 
leader. That is good news. We will see what we can do to move on. I 
hope everyone realizes that jobs in America are not created in large 
numbers by big companies; it is small businesses.
  In the past few months, we passed a relatively small piece of 
legislation, but it has been extremely helpful to

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small business. We extended the highway bill for a year. That saved 1 
million jobs in America, hundreds of jobs in Nevada. We also had a 
provision that was unique and has created some jobs that has been 
extremely helpful. If somebody is out of work for 60 days, they can be 
hired for 30 hours. We don't set what price they can be hired, the 
minimum wage or whatever. At the end of their report period for 
withholding, they don't have to pay the withholding tax. At the end of 
a year, we give them a $1,000 tax credit for every employee. We also 
did something that was totally bipartisan, a bill developed by Senators 
Schumer and Hatch. That is what I just talked about. That was totally 
bipartisan. We had another provision in that bill that said that a 
small business, if they wanted to buy a piece of equipment, whether it 
was an automobile, furniture, whatever it might be, no longer had to 
depreciate that. Up to $250,000, they could simply write it off. We 
also added to that bill some money for Build America Bonds which local 
governments loved. That has created some jobs, but it is relatively 
small compared to the other things we have in this bill before the 
Senate now. I am glad to hear what the distinguished Republican leader 
had to say about that.
  Mr. McCONNELL. The majority leader is entirely correct about the 
importance of small business. We know it creates the vast majority of 
jobs. There is no question that small business at this particular point 
is kind of frozen with concern about the economy, about increased 
regulation, the potential for increased taxation as well. Senator Snowe 
has certainly been the leader on our side on focusing on small business 
and small business job development. I am hoping we can work out a way 
to go forward on a bipartisan basis. It sounds to me as though both 
sides agree on the premise. Now if we can get a procedure for moving 
forward, hopefully we can address this most important subject.

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