[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: George W. Bush (2008, Book I)]
[April 23, 2008]
[Pages 564-568]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]
Remarks on Small Business Week
April 23, 2008
Welcome. I'm glad you're here. Thanks for coming. Nothing better,
being in the East Room of the White House with successful entrepreneurs,
small-business owners, dreamers, and doers who really add such richness
to our country. So I welcome you here. I'm glad you're here. It's
exciting to be here, isn't it? Yes, after 7\1/2\ years, it's still
exciting for me too. And I'm really glad you're here.
I want to thank Steve Preston. He's
done a fantastic job as the head of the SBA, so good that I named him to
be the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. And I congratulate
you, Steve, for taking the job. I'm looking forward to getting the
Senate to take up your nomination quickly and get you approved.
So Small Business Week--the truth of the matter is, every day ought
to be small business day in America because--[applause]. Of course,
people say, why? Well, first of all, small businesses create over two-
thirds of all new jobs in America. And if you want your economy to grow,
and if you want the country to be hopeful, it seems like you ought to be
celebrating the talent and the energy of our small-business owners
daily. But we've decided to do it week--yearly--Small Business Week. I
presume that's 1 week out of the year. [Laughter]
And so the first thing I've got to do is congratulate all the award
winners who are here. Thanks. It's--owning a small business is hard;
it's not an easy experience. I've had the pleasure of getting to meet a
lot of small-business owners during my time as, first, Governor of Texas
and then President of the country. And you'll be amazed at how many
times people have said, well, you know, it all started around the
kitchen table. You'll also be amazed at how many family members are
involved in the creation and the operation of a small business. And our
fellow citizens wouldn't be amazed to know that the number of hours
required to make sure the business is going is a lot. But the thing that
struck me the most, besides the fact that people are willing to dream
and work hard, is how proud the small-business owner is of the employees
with whom the person works and how caring the owner is to make sure that
those who've helped the business succeed are treated well.
I have the pleasure of welcoming and recognizing one Shawn
Christopher Boyer, who happens to be the
recipient of the Small Business Owner of the Year. Now, Shawn started
off by helping a friend
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search online for an internship, and he got an idea for a business right
there. Sometimes that happens. You know, it's just, like, click. And the
idea was to create a web site to help unemployed Americans with job
opportunities. And actually, I asked him to leave a business card,
because it seems like I might be looking here after a while. [Laughter]
He started his business with just two
employees. I bet you a lot of the winners here can say, ``I started my
business with one or two employees.'' He has grown--got 100 employees
now. He is--earnings have grown from almost $900,000 in '03 to over $11
million 4 years later. And as I just told you, he was named National
Small Business Person of the Year. I met with Shawn, the CFO David
Bosher, Tennille, as
well as his dad. And I want to congratulate
you, Shawn. Welcome to the White House, and I really wish you all the
very best.
Angela Timm, where's Angela? Oh, there you
are. Thank you, Angela. She started a company in her home that sells
music boxes and framed messages that offer words of hope and
inspiration. She's gone through what a lot of other small-business
owners go through, which is good times and bad times. And the
fundamental question is, do you have the perseverance to endure the bad
time and the humility to handle the good times?
In 2004, her business hit hard times. She
had a good idea, but sometimes everything doesn't go well for you in the
business world. The company's line of credit was maxed out. They had to
let managers go, and her home was hit by a tornado. Her family and
Angela held on through the adversity. They recovered. They hired back
employees. In recent years, they have seen sales in the millions, with
healthy profits. And that is why she's the runner-up Small Business
Owner of the Year.
And the reason I bring up these 2 stories--we could be here for the
other 48 stories, which would have a lot of similarities. I appreciate
you all coming together to share stories, to reach out to others who
wonder what it's like to be an entrepreneur, to help others realize the
great wonders of ownership, and to make sure that as you tell the story,
that people are realistic about what it takes to succeed.
Government has a role to play as well, and that is to create an
environment in which the entrepreneurial spirit flourishes. I mean, as I
remind people, that Government doesn't create success in a small
business. Matter of fact, Government can pass policies that make it
harder to succeed in small business. Government has got to be mindful of
the contribution of the entrepreneur and make sure that the environment
is such that people feel comfortable dreaming and owning and expanding.
And so I know you're going to be speaking to elected officials, and
I've got a few suggestions about what you might offer them in the way of
advice. First, you might suggest to Members of Congress that they let
you keep your money, in other words, to keep taxes low. This is
obviously a difficult time for the economy, and I like to say it's a
rough patch. And the reason I call it that is because I'm confident that
with good policies and hard work, we'll come out stronger than we were
entering. But nevertheless, it's tough. And it's tough on small-business
owners.
We did take action in which, rather than just analyzing the
situation, we saw this coming and moved swiftly with Members of Congress
from both parties, believe it or not--actually got something done in a
constructive way without feeling like they had to call each other names.
And it's a progrowth package which will provide tax rebates to more than
130 million American households. And that ought to help--that ought to
help stimulate consumption. The money hasn't hit yet. It's going to be
there--start moving in the second week of May.
The stimulus package also provides incentives for businesses like
yours to invest
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in new equipment and technology this year. In other words, it's a
temporary stimulus package aimed at dealing with the rough patch that
we've entered into, but it's got to be robust enough to matter. So when
you're affecting 130 million households, that's robust. And when you're
affecting all the businesses in the United States, that's a robust
message.
And the reason why it's important to stimulate investment is because
if tax policy can encourage you to buy a piece of equipment, one, it
helps your business be more productive, but also somebody has got to
make the equipment. And if somebody is making the equipment, then
somebody has got to buy the supplies to make the equipment, and it kind
of ripples throughout the economy.
So the idea was to provide stimulus to businesses and to provide--
give money to the taxpayers so that they can go out and purchase things
and remain active consumers. And it's going to take awhile for this to
have an effect. The experts tell me that--you got these economists that
say, on the one hand, and on the other hand--if they had three hands, it
would be three opinions, but nevertheless--all due respect to some of my
economist friends here. [Laughter] But pretty well consensus that the
stimulus package, when it takes full effect, will affect our growth in
the third quarter, which begins in July of this year.
There's other work to be done on taxes. One of my concerns about tax
policy is that it creates uncertainty. In other words, when you're
trying to figure out a 5-year projection about your companies, you've
got to be certain that the tax load that you now bear isn't going to
increase. It's hard to plan. It's hard to have a successful small
business if there's uncertainty in the environment. And one place where
there can be a lot of uncertainty is whether or not your taxes are going
to remain low. And the reason why that's the case is because the tax
relief we passed is going to expire, some of it beginning in 2010.
Now, the tax relief we passed, you might remember, cut taxes on all
people who pay taxes. Now, we have--and emphasis on families with
children, for example. We tried to get rid of the death tax forever. A
small-business owner has got to be saying to Members of Congress, ``I
don't want to be taxed twice, once when I'm alive, and once after I
die''--particularly if you own a small business. It's an unfair tax. Yet
that tax, which is on the road to extinction, is going to come back to
life.
And equally damaging, as far as I'm concerned, is the fact that
people are saying, we're going to let the personal income tax rates go
back up. And, of course, the language is, ``only on the rich people.''
Well, the sad fact is, is that many of our small businesses are
subchapter S corporations, LLCs, limited partnerships that pay tax at
the individual income tax level. And so the tax relief we provided was
in many ways--should have been called a small-business tax relief plan.
And the idea of saying that we're going to raise individual income tax
rates really is counterproductive to making sure that the economy
remains strong.
If you're creating over two-thirds of the new jobs, why would we
want to be taking money out of the treasuries of those job creators?
Less money in your treasury means it's going to be harder for you to
create the jobs necessary for this economy to be strong. If Congress
truly cares about keeping this economy strong, they ought to have
certainty in the Tax Code by making all the tax cuts we passed
permanent.
A couple other issues, now that I got you stuck here. [Laughter]
Health care, I fully understand that you're concerned about affordable
health care. You're concerned, obviously, because it affects your bottom
line, but you're also more concerned because it affects the people you
work with. And I understand that. And there's a choice that we can make
in Government. One is, do we have kind of a wholesale plan sponsored by,
executed by
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the Federal Government, or do we put policy in place that encourages the
decisionmakers to be directly in touch with the providers? That's what I
have tried to propose, and have proposed, such as health savings
accounts.
For those of you who have not explored health savings accounts, I
strongly urge you to do so. It's a very powerful way for you to better
afford health insurance and, at the same time, empower your employees.
I believe Congress should change the Tax Code. If you're working for
a big company in America, you get a better tax break than if you're
working for--on your own or you're on a contract, employee. And so there
ought to be a standard deduction for health insurance so that the bias
in the Tax Code is eliminated.
We ought to confront junk lawsuits that drive good docs out of
practice and run up the cost of your health care.
And finally, I strongly believe that Congress should allow small
businesses to pool risk across jurisdictional boundaries. Those are long
words. Like, if you're a restaurant guy in Texas, you ought be able to
put your employees in the same risk pool as a restaurant person in
Maryland. Those are called association health plans that will enable
small businesses to be able to buy insurance at the same discounts that
big businesses get. But what we shouldn't do is have a health care
system where the decisions are made in Washington, DC, not made in your
offices or between patients and doctors.
I want to talk about an interesting issue that is getting a lot of
attention these days, and that is the issue of trade and markets. And as
you know by now, I hope, that I'm--I believe that it's in our interests
to open up markets for U.S. products and goods and services. I also know
it's in our interest to say to the world, treat us the way we treat you.
In other words, all we want to do is be treated fairly. And one of the
interesting votes coming up here soon--hopefully, if the Speaker doesn't change her--does change her mind--which would
be on the Colombia free trade agreement. And let me tell you why I think
this is important.
First of all, there are about 9,000 American businesses that export
to Colombia. Most of those businesses, by far the vast majority, are
midsized and small businesses. The problem is, is that that which they
export generally faces significant tariffs. In other words, the product
that they're selling is more expensive because of the tariffs. On the
other hand, as a result of congressional policy over the years, products
coming from Colombia into the United States don't face tariffs. So
American goods and services, mainly provided by midsized and small-sized
businesses, are taxed going into Colombia, making it harder for those
products to gain market access. On the other hand, as a result of years
of policy, Colombian goods come here duty free.
Now, doesn't it make sense to say to Colombia, we value our
friendship, but we would like to be treated the way we treat you? And
that's what the Colombia free trade agreement says. It--this is a bill
that is beneficial to our small businesses and midsized businesses. It
makes eminent sense to level the playing field. Yet, unfortunately, the
leadership in the House of Representatives chose a unusual procedure to
block a vote. I believe the bill will pass. I know that when people
really analyze whether it's fair or not to be treated one way and yet
Colombia be treated beneficially--say, well, why don't we just level the
playing field?
The other thing is this vote has got enormous national policy
implications. First of all, it's in our interest to have a neighborhood
that's free--when people who believe in rule of law and human rights--
support leaders in our neighborhood that are tough on dealing with
narcotraffickers.
In Colombia, there's a group called FARC, which is funded by, in
large part, drugs, that are willing to use violence to
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advance their agenda. And they're threatening our ally. And President
Uribe is taking them on in a way that
doesn't violate the human rights of his people. He's a strong, strong
leader. And yet if Congress turns down this agreement, it's like turning
our back to an ally, which will encourage the voices of false populism
in our neighborhood.
And so I--this is an important vote. It's important for small
businesses, it's important for our economy, and it's important for our
national security interests. And the United States Congress must give it
a vote on the floor of the House.
So those are some of the things that are on my mind. [Laughter] You
know, it's interesting, there's a portrait of a fellow that hangs here
in the White House who--he failed at nearly every enterprise he started.
He invested in a zinc mine, but lost his money. He invested in an oil
company, but the company sold the lease to a--and it turned out to be a
gusher, but he didn't own any of it at that point in time. He ran a
store with a friend, but it went bankrupt after a few years. And yet he
was arguably one of the finest Presidents we had, and that was Harry
Truman.
I'm convinced--I've never had a visit with Harry at all, but I'm
convinced that he would say, ``The lessons I learned in trying to be a
small-business owner are lessons that are important for a decisionmaker
in the White House.'' And although it's hard to say he was a successful
businessperson, he learned about hard work and determination and
resilience and willing to face adversity with good spirit.
And that is why I am honored to be with you today, because I'm
confident that's what you've done. What you've chosen to do is not easy,
but what you've chosen to do is important for our country. It's the
collective decisions by our small-business owners that make America the
envy of the world in many ways.
I love it when people can say, ``I have a idea, and I am going to
apply all my talent and all my effort to see the idea come to
fruition.'' It is what made us great in the past, it's what makes us
great today, and what is going to make us great in the future. And I
hope you take great pride in the contributions that you're making to
your community, your family, and your Nation.
Thanks for coming, and may God bless you.
Note: The President spoke at 3:50 p.m. in the East Room at the White
House. In his remarks, he referred to Shawn C. Boyer, president and
chief executive officer, David Bosher, senior vice president and chief
financial officer, and Tennille Boyer, national account executive,
SnagAJob.com, Inc.; J. Hardin Boyer, father of Mr. Boyer; and Angela
Timm, founder and chief executive officer, Cottage Garden Collections.
The Small Business Week proclamation of April 17 is listed in Appendix D
at the end of this volume.