[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 44, Number 15 (Monday, April 21, 2008)]
[Pages 542-547]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks at the America's Small Business Summit

April 18, 2008

    Thanks for the warm welcome. I appreciate you being here in the 
Nation's Capital. I know most of you have come from out of town, which 
is good. It means you're brave souls to be here on tax week. [Laughter] 
The Holy Father was here as well, which is good, because it will take a 
miracle to keep the IRS out of your pocket. [Laughter]
    It's been a fabulous week, and I do welcome you here. And I want to 
thank you for being dreamers and doers. One of the reasons I spend a lot 
of time talking about our small business--small-business owners in 
America is because I truly believe you represent what makes America 
great, and it's the idea to have your own dreams, form your own 
businesses, create employment opportunities for citizens in the 
communities in which you live.
    I grew up in Midland, and, gosh, I remember a lot of the--
[applause]. There you go. I remember--it's not exactly the biggest city 
in America. On the other hand, it's the kind of place that you know 
the--you knew the local shop person or the--my friend Jackie Hanks's 
Uncle Brutus had the local grocery store. And it was just that--that 
fabric of the community was the small-business owners.
    And so I'm so thrilled you're here. I really appreciate you giving 
me a chance to come and visit some--talk some policy with you. I 
appreciate Tom for introducing me--president and CEO of the U.S. 
Chamber. They do great work in Washington, DC, trying to make sure that 
there is no harm and that there is good policy in order to encourage 
people to invest and save.
    I want to thank my friend Andy Card, who's here. Thanks for being 
here, Andy--my Chief of Staff in the first 4 years of the Presidency; 
did a fabulous job. He's a decent, honorable man, a guy I'm proud to 
call friend.
    You know, this summit's occurring at a very trying time for our 
economy. You know that better than anybody else. We had--we've had a 
good run. I mean, we had 52 months of uninterrupted job growth, and 
that's a record. And now our economy has slowed. It's--businesses are 
being squeezed by high energy prices and high health care prices. 
Workers and families are anxious on a variety of fronts, including 
mortgage--making mortgage bills and higher price for food and gasoline. 
It's a tough time for America.
    The--you know, we saw this coming. Last I can remember is talking to 
our team last year, and they said, there's a slowdown coming. And so we 
took some action. And I do

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want to thank Members of the Congress and members of the chamber for 
working on a--what I believe is going to be a very effective progrowth 
stimulus package. Now, we actually showed that it's possible for 
Republicans and Democrats to set aside the political wrangling that 
takes place here in Washington and focus on what's best for the American 
people.
    And I want to describe this package to you and to remind our fellow 
citizens that soon, a significant amount of money will be coming in 
their mailboxes, which is going to help the small-business sector. It's 
going to help families, and it's going to help the small-business 
sector, which helps the American economy. After all, you create 70 
percent of the new jobs in America. And so the first thing that's going 
to happen is, is that the consumers will get a boost, in that tax 
rebates will be sent out to about 130 million American households. Now, 
these rebates will return up to $600 for individuals, $1,200 for married 
couples, and $300 per child. When the rebates start to go out in a 
couple of weeks--which they haven't started to go out yet; Secretary 
Paulson tells me by the second week of May, the money is going to start 
moving--a family of four could receive a tax rebate up to $1,800.
    Now, here in Washington, that's like--people say, that's not very 
much money. Well, if you're out there worrying about your--about meeting 
bills or saving for your kids' education, that's a lot of money. And the 
purpose is to make a difference to the families and to encourage them 
and give them confidence so they can go spend, you know, buy products 
from you.
    Secondly, the stimulus package provides incentives for business to 
invest in new plant and equipment and new technologies. Entrepreneurs 
like yourself should use this incentive to expand your business. It's 
the whole purpose of it. And the reason why we're trying to provide 
incentives for businesses, both large and small, is because when you 
have the incentive to go purchase a piece of equipment, somebody has got 
to make the equipment. It has a ripple effect throughout the economy. 
And this stimulus package has been in place for about 2 months, and 
small businesses are beginning to use it.
    I had the honor of meeting Darlene Miller. You may know Darlene. 
She's from a--she's got a manufacturing concern in Minnesota called 
Permac Industries. She is--bought the company 14 years ago, and since 
then, she's expanded it dramatically. She's nearly doubled her 
manufacturing space last year, and now she needs some equipment to fill 
the space. And so thanks to the stimulus package, she told me she's 
going to purchase much of that equipment this year instead of spacing it 
out over time. In other words, the incentives have encouraged Darlene to 
make a purchase this year. She expects these investments to expand 
manufacturing capacity by 25 percent, and then she plans to hire at 
least five more workers.
    The reason I bring up this example is this how--this is how 
incentives work. Darlene was incented--received an incentive to purchase 
machinery, to fill some space, to make sure she becomes more 
competitive. And in so doing, it not only causes somebody else to have 
to make the machinery, but she's now going to hire more people. She also 
had a pretty good achievement at--and she received another good 
achievement, I understand. After all, she's the Chamber of Commerce's 
National Small Business Owner of the Year.
    And I met a guy named Tom Sawner. Now, he's an old fighter pilot, 
which means there's no wall he can run through. He's a doer, an 
achiever, and he's got him a small business called Educational Options. 
And he provides web-based curricula to schools all across the country. 
He is purchasing new computers, servers, routers, and cars to expand his 
business because of the stimulus package, because of the incentives.
    He said the stimulus plan has helped give him the confidence to 
expand his workforce. This year, so far, he has hired four new 
employees, and he plans to bring on a dozen more. In his words, he said 
that the stimulus package has made a huge difference. And the stimulus 
package is making a huge difference because small-business owners, like 
the two I mentioned, are taking advantage of the stimulus plan to boost 
investment, which then helps boost jobs.

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    It's going to take awhile for these changes to be reflected in our 
economy. The advisers--economic advisers and many outside experts 
believe that much of the impact of the stimulus will be felt starting in 
the third quarter, which begins in July. That's what the experts say. 
There should be no doubt in anybody's mind, though, that we'll recover 
from this slowdown. And we're going to bounce back strong, and the small 
businesses of America are going to lead the way.
    We designed this package so it would be temporary and robust enough 
to have an effect. And so we need to be thinking in the longer term as 
well. And one way that--I mean, one thing Congress has got to understand 
is that there is--what small-business owners don't need is uncertainty. 
And one place where there's uncertainty is in the Tax Code, as well as 
trade. And I want to spend some time on taxes and trade today.
    We've--as Tom mentioned, we've cut taxes. And I truly believe in the 
philosophy that you can spend your own money better than the government 
can. Obviously there's a--[applause]--we've got needs in Washington, DC. 
We're fighting a war. We want to make sure our troops are well-funded. 
We want to take care of those who can't help themselves. I mean, there's 
serious needs. But I also know that the more money that's available in 
Washington, the more people will figure out how to spend it.
    And I truly believe what I mean--I think it's important for 
government to trust the collective wisdom of the American people. And 
that's why I was such a strong believer in tax relief. I also knew that 
we needed to make sure you had more money in your treasuries to help us 
get out of a recession, to recover from war and corporate scandal and 
natural disasters.
    The--I'm also confident a lot of people in America may have 
forgotten what it was like before the tax relief. And the problem is, is 
that we're on schedule for there to be an unpleasant reminder of what it 
was like before tax relief, because unless Congress acts, almost all the 
tax relief we delivered will expire in 2010. If Congress were to let 
this happen, tax rates will rise across the board, the marriage penalty 
will return in full force, the child tax credit will be cut in half, and 
every income payer--income tax payer in America will receive a tax hike.
    What I don't think a lot of people in Washington fully understand is 
that small-business owners are going to bear a heavy burden if the tax 
rates go back up. And the reason why is, is that most small-business 
owners are subchapter S corporations or partnerships or LLCs that pay 
their business taxes at individual rates. So if the individual rates go 
up, it directly affects millions of small businesses in America.
    Taxes on capital gains and dividends would go up, which would 
discourage the investment you need to expand. And the death tax would 
come back to life. The--overall, it is estimated that small-business 
owners would face an average tax increase of more than $4,000 per year. 
That would stifle enterprise; it would hurt workers. The last thing 
small-business owners need is higher taxes. I believe strongly that to 
make sure this economy recovers and stays strong, there needs to be 
certainty in the Tax Code. And the best way for Congress to make sure 
there's certainty is to make the tax relief we passed permanent.
    I want to talk--spend a little time on trade. Last year--and this is 
important for you to understand--last year, exports accounted for more 
than 40 percent of our growth. This is a critical contribution to our 
economy at any time, but especially now. With the economy slowing, 
exports are providing a valuable contribution to economic activity. And 
Congress has an opportunity to expand access to key export markets.
    In other words, there's an opportunity for Congress to say that 
let's continue to have this kind of economic vitality, as a result of 
exports, permeate throughout our economy. And they've got an opportunity 
with--to vote on trade agreements with three democratic allies and 
friends: Colombia, Panama, and South Korea.
    I want to spend some time talking about Colombia today because this 
is the first of these agreements to be considered. Unfortunately, 
leaders on Capitol Hill seem to have put special interests ahead of the 
economic and strategic interests of our Nation, because the Speaker of 
the House recently changed House rules in the middle of the game so

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she can put off a vote on the Colombia free trade agreement. If this 
decision stands, it will kill the agreement, and American small-business 
owners and workers will likely be hurt the most.
    And here's why. Almost all of Colombia's exports to the United 
States enter our country duty free, but the 9,000 American businesses 
that export to Colombia, including 8,000 small and midsized firms, face 
substantial tariffs on their products. The Congress has passed laws in 
the past that enable Colombian goods to come here duty free; the vast 
majority of our products face taxes to go into their countries. And most 
of the people facing those taxes are small-business owners.
    And this problem is easy to resolve. The free trade agreement would 
immediately eliminate most tariffs on American exports to Colombia. 
That's what the free trade agreement does. My attitude is, just treat us 
the way we treat you. All we want to do is have a level playing field in 
which to compete. By level the playing field--by leveling the playing 
field, American products would be more competitive in Colombia, and it 
would help American businesses.
    It turns out that if you're an exporter, your workers are likely to 
get paid more money. It's good for American workers to be working for 
companies that export into other markets, and it's good for small 
businesses. Yet after 500 days that we signed the agreement with 
Colombia, the one-sided trading relationship remains in place because 
the Congress has failed to act.
    The obstruction has another consequence. Congress is signaling to a 
watching hemisphere--people in the hemisphere, our own neighborhood, are 
watching to see how the United States Congress reacts to our friends. 
They're wondering whether or not America can be trusted to support our 
friends.
    And we've got a friend in President Uribe of Colombia. He's a 
steadfast ally. He has transformed his country from the brink of a 
failing state to a stable democracy with a growing economy. He has 
partnered with the United States of America in the fight against drugs 
and terror. He has responded to virtually every request of the United 
States Congress, including revising the free trade agreement to include 
some of the most rigorous labor and environmental protections in 
history. He's done all this while under violent assault from a terrorist 
organization called FARC, and he's done all this facing intimidation 
from anti-American regimes in the region.
    It's hard to imagine any leader in the world who has proven more 
worthy of our support and friendship. Yet Congress's response is to 
complain that Colombia still has not done enough. In particular, some 
Members of Congress have charged that the Colombian Government is not 
doing enough to prevent violence against unionists. Well, President 
Uribe has taken historic measures to reduce violence against unionists. 
As a results, according to the Colombian Government, Colombian unionists 
are now less likely to be homicide victims than members of the general 
population. And as President Uribe has made clear, one of the best ways 
to improve security even further is to provide more jobs, which is 
exactly what a free trade agreement will do. By rejecting this agreement 
after all Colombia has done, leaders in Congress would send a terrible 
message.
    They had an editorial in the Washington Post the other day that 
summed up Congress's message this way: Drop dead, Colombia. Well, the 
congressional leadership's decision to turn its back on Colombia is 
especially hypocritical because Democrats are often the loudest voices 
for more diplomacy and greater sensitivity to our allies. The Colombia 
agreement is a textbook example of this approach, and yet the Speaker 
chose to use unprecedented tactics to kill it.
    Leaders in Congress have made a serious error. It's a serious error 
for economic reasons, and it's a serious error for security reasons. 
They have--it's not too late, however, for them to get it right. This 
week a long list of senior officials from Democratic administrations and 
Democrats from previous Congresses signed a letter urging Congress to 
approve this agreement this year. And they wrote, ``We feel that the 
treaty should be considered as soon as possible and that any obstacles 
be quickly and amicably resolved.'' I couldn't agree more. I urge the 
leaders in Congress to reconsider their position and

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recognize the stakes at hand and approve the Colombia agreement as soon 
as possible.
    There are other things we can do to help small businesses weather 
the difficult time and, equally importantly, remain competitive for a 
long time to come. One, Congress should work to make health care more 
affordable and available by expanding health savings accounts, by 
confronting junk medical lawsuits that are running good doctors out of 
practice and running up the cost of health care for small businesses, 
allowing businesses--small businesses to pool together across State 
lines--it's called association health plans--across State lines to get 
the same discounts on health insurance that big businesses get.
    We're working with Congress, and I've been working with the folks in 
my administration, to help people who are creditworthy stay in their 
homes. There's a--I think it's very important that we not help 
speculators, but there are a lot of people that are wondering how to 
renegotiate their mortgage. I've explained to people, when I bought my 
first home in Midland, there was actually things such as savings and 
loans. And the person that actually lent the money owned the note. Well, 
these days, the people who are lending the money don't own the notes, 
and so it's difficult if you want to renegotiate to figure out who to 
renegotiate with.
    And so we've set up a plan called the HOPE NOW Alliance to help 
creditworthy homeowners renegotiate so they can deal with these reset 
mortgages and stay in their homes. We want people owning their home. We 
want people owning a businesses; we want people owning their own homes. 
We want to help them stay. And Congress can help by passing responsible 
legislation that modernizes the Federal Housing Administration, reforms 
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, allows State housing agencies to issue tax-
free bonds to refinance subprime mortgages. There's a way to help 
people.
    Congress ought to help and, you know, prepare the workforce for the 
21st century. One of the concerns of Congress is that trade causes 
people to lose jobs. I understand that concern. That's why I'm a 
supporter of trade adjustment assistance. Congress needs to work with 
leaders of both parties to get a good trade adjustment assistance bill 
to my desk that I can sign into law.
    I also strongly believe that we want to make sure the No Child Left 
Behind Act continues to work. It's a--you measure every day; that's why 
you're successful businesspeople. I mean, you know what your business is 
doing. I believe we ought to extend that same principle to our public 
schools, and ask a simple question: Can a child read at grade level? And 
in order to determine that, that's why you measure. And if the answer is 
yes, we all say, great. If the answer is no, the next question ought to 
be, then what are you going to do about it? And so the principle behind 
the No Child Left Behind Act is to set high standards, believe every 
child can learn, and measure to see if we're getting results. And 
Congress need not weaken such a good piece of legislation.
    And finally, one issue that you need to be aware of is that--is the 
issue on secret ballots when it comes to allowing workers to vote their 
conscience on whether to form a union or to remain unaffiliated. 
Congress is now considering--it passed out of the House, and the Senate, 
I'm told, is going to take this up. And I just want to put this on our 
collective radar screens, that Congress is considering card check 
legislation that would strip workers of a fundamental right--that is the 
right for secret ballot as to--whether to unionize or not. This bill 
would expose workers to intimidation; it violates the principles of our 
democracy; and if it were to reach my desk, I will veto it.
    The purpose of good policy in Washington should be to unleash the 
entrepreneurial spirit of the country. You can't make somebody an 
entrepreneur from government, but you can create an environment which 
encourages risk-taking and enables people to keep more of what they 
earn, lets somebody stay more in the shop than in the courthouse, helps 
people help their workers.
    We--and so some of the policies that I've just outlined are all 
aimed at creating an environment that is conducive to entrepreneurship. 
I was--I see all kinds of amazing things when I'm President; I read 
about them, of course. I love meeting with our entrepreneurs, and I love 
hearing the stories about how businesses get started. And a lot of

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times, believe it or not, there is--as I'm sure you know, that they all 
happen, like, at a kitchen table. And sure enough, out of that simple 
idea and hard work--because I understand as well as anybody how hard it 
is to build a small business. I mean, it's not--it takes a lot of time 
and a lot of effort and a lot of focus and patient spouses and sometimes 
spouses actually watching the money to make sure the other spouse 
doesn't blow it. [Laughter]

    So how about this guy. He is a guy who paid his way through college, 
and he--by diving into water hazards and selling the golf balls that he 
found. And evidently, he had this dream, and so he graduated and decided 
to take his idea and make it into an Internet golf shop. And it's a 
prosperous business, and he's creating jobs.

    Now, he didn't need a government program to figure out how to do 
that. It's his ingenuity. It was his desires to not only pay his own 
college education but then to convert that into something that would be 
good for consumers--obviously if it wasn't good for consumers, he 
wouldn't have much of a business history--good for the people he's 
employed. And all he needed was the ability to dream and willingness to 
work hard. And this is what defines our country. It's the spirit that 
makes America so unique and so great. And that spirit is found in the 
room.

    And our--the role of government is to never stifle that spirit, is 
to encourage the spirit, reward the spirit, and always pay--and always 
remind our citizens that we are a vibrant and prosperous and hopeful 
nation, because we are a land blessed with vibrant and hopeful people.

    God bless you, and thanks for letting me come by.

Note: The President spoke at 11:12 a.m. at the Renaissance Washington, 
DC Hotel. In his remarks, he referred to Pope Benedict XVI; Thomas J. 
Donohue, president and chief executive officer, U.S. Chamber of 
Commerce; Darlene M. Miller, president and chief executive officer, 
Permac Industries; and Thomas E. Sawner, president and chief executive 
officer, Educational Options, Inc.