[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 17]
[Senate]
[Pages 23440-23441]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                   THE SMALL BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, in a few minutes we will be formally 
addressing the issue surrounding the Small Business Administration. 
Thus, I would like to briefly comment on the importance of small 
business in this country, how the Senate is responding, and to put a 
little bit of perspective around the importance of the United States 
doing everything it can--whether it is with the regulatory burden, 
whether it is in making resources and capital available, or opening up 
other opportunities for small businesses in this country--how important 
that is to overall economic growth.
  Benjamin Franklin once said: He who would fish must venture his bait. 
Fortunately, in America we have millions of creative and driven women 
and men and even teams ready to cast their reels. Fortunately, we have 
the Small Business Administration ready to help them. You might say 
that the Small Business Administration is an entrepreneur's bait and 
tackle shop.
  I believe by today's action in a few moments we will be passing the 
Small Business Administration's 50th Anniversary Reauthorization Act of 
2003. This Federal agency has helped more than 20 million Americans 
start, grow, and expand their businesses. It has become the 
Government's most effective instrument for economic development. With 
its help, small companies have grown from a handful of employees into 
literally thousands. The vitality of the American economy is due in no 
small part to this agency, which celebrates its 50th anniversary this 
year.
  Thanks to today's legislative victory, this pivotal agency will 
continue working with America's job creators to grow the economy, to 
boost the economy, and to expand the economy.
  Just how important are small business owners? Those innovators create 
60 to 80 percent of new jobs nationwide. Sixty to eighty percent of new 
jobs are created by small businesses. They generate more than 50 
percent of the gross domestic product. Small business owners are the 
heart of the American marketplace, and their contributions to jobs and 
productivity is its lifeblood.
  In my home State of Tennessee, 97.1 percent of all businesses are 
small businesses. From the year 1999 to the year 2000, Tennessee's 
small businesses added a net total of 36,806 employees, and 12,000 
companies with fewer than 100 workers employed 44.9 percent of the 
State's nonfarm sector workers. Workers and consumers depend on the 
small business sector to generate jobs, products, and services. The 
Small Business Administration helps fuel the creativity and the 
dynamism of this vital sector of the economy. And it has been 
extraordinarily successful.
  Take, for example, one restaurant chain, the Outback Steak House. It 
may come as a surprise to some, but the Outback Steak House does not 
have its headquarters in Australia. No. It has its headquarters in 
Tampa, FL. In a little over 10 years, the Outback Steak House has grown 
from a really small restaurant operation into a dining phenomenon.

[[Page 23441]]

  In February of 1990, the 2\1/2\-year-old company employed 
approximately 300 people and had a net worth of less than $2 million. 
That year, there was an injection from the Small Business 
Administration. Ten years later, the restaurant chain employs not 300 
people but 38,000 people. That $2 million has grown into revenues of 
the dizzying amount of $1.16 billion. The Outback Steak House now has 
restaurants in 48 States, 13 countries, and places as far away as Seoul 
and Rio de Janeiro.
  Staples is another dazzling example of a Small Business 
Administration injection of help with a catalytic effect. It started as 
a single office supply store in Brighton, MA, in 1986. The office 
supply store is now the country's largest operator of office 
superstores, employing more than 58,000 people, with annual gross sales 
of $11.6 billion. It in turn is offering services and products to small 
businesses to help them cut their own costs in the hopes that they 
might also grow to such proportions.
  At a macro level during the last 4 fiscal years, just one financing 
program within the Federal agency has helped create 1.3 million new 
jobs--newly created jobs all by this one financing program.
  Over that same period of time, a second lending program at the 
agency--a program called the 504 Loan Program--helped create and retain 
an additional 445,000 jobs.
  HUBZone is another program that has been a job creator. In the last 2 
years, this program which targets severely economically distressed 
areas, has helped create over 30,000 new jobs.
  These are just a few of the examples--a smattering--of the programs 
at the SBA that have helped and worked so effectively to add new jobs 
to the economy. The SBA, it should be said, is just one of the many 
efforts that are made by this body and by our Government to support job 
creative policies.
  We think simply back to the 2003 Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Act. We 
provided 23 million small business owners with tax cuts averaging, 
through that one bill, $2,200 each. In fact, small businesses received 
80 percent of the benefits of the reduction in the top marginal tax 
rate. That 2003 Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Act quadrupled the amount 
that small businesses can expense for new capital investments, and that 
in turn will lead to new investment in technology, in machinery, and 
new investments in equipment.
  This legislation is yet another example of this body, our Government, 
working with the President to create jobs and economic growth. Together 
with the Small Business Administration reauthorization, these progrowth 
policies--these policies that create jobs and grow the economy--will 
increase productivity and make every consumer's dollar go further.
  Remington Electric Shaver magnate and pitchman Victor Kiam once 
observed:

       Entrepreneurs are simply those who understand that there is 
     little difference between obstacle and opportunity, and are 
     able to turn both to their advantage.

  I think with the passage of this bill we can include ourselves--this 
body--in that description as well.
  I applaud my colleagues for supporting the Small Business 
Administration, which in turn will reach out in support of America's 
most important job creators, the small business owner.

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