President Obama Creates a Small Business Jobs Plan


President Obama Creates a Small Business Jobs PlanLast week Anita Campbell let us know about what happened at National Small Business Week and the Small Business Administration’s focus on the “3 C’s”: capital, contracts and counseling. There was so much said about the first “C”, capital, I thought it was worth a deeper look.

In her kickoff address SBA Administrator Karen Mills brought us up to date on the results from last year’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) which to date has lent $27 billion to small businesses. But as Mills said, “There’s more work to do.”

To that end, President Obama encouraged Congress to pass the Small Business Lending Fund Act. The House financial services committee has already approved parts of the bill and it will soon go before the full House and the Senate. Mills called the Act a “small business jobs plan.”

Here are some of the highlights of what this Act would do:

  • Create a $30 billion lending fund which would go to the smaller community banks to loan to small businesses. (The money would come from TARP funds.)
  • The State Small Business Credit Initiative would give money to cash-strapped state programs that help entrepreneurs.
  • Further extend the SBA’s 90 percent loan guarantee on SBA-backed loans.
  • Continue to waive fees for borrowers receiving SBA-backed loans.
  • Temporarily increase SBA Express loans to $1 million, up from $350,000. This, said Mills, would “mean more small business owners will have quicker access to this source of capital to help restock inventories and support larger revenue sales, and literally take that next step to grow their business and create new jobs.”
  • Temporarily allow small business owners to refinance their mortgages on owner-occupied commercial real estate.
  • Permanently increase the maximum loan amounts of 7(a) and 504 loans to $5 million and microloans from $35,000 to $50,000.
  • Eliminate capital gains taxes for small businesses in 2010.
  • Give business owners a tax credit for hiring unemployed workers.
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Rieva Lesonsky Rieva Lesonsky is a Columnist for Small Business Trends covering employment, retail trends and women in business. She is CEO of GrowBiz Media, a media company that helps entrepreneurs start and grow their businesses. Visit her blog, SmallBizDaily, to get the scoop on business trends and free TrendCast reports.

13 Reactions
  1. Rieva,

    Thanks for the update..

    Now, I’d never want you to think that I’m being a pain in the…, but still no specific mention of start-up loans for..you guessed it, franchise business start-ups.

    What’s the deal?

    Thanks,

    The Franchise King

  2. This job plan is, like all that come from DC, just a little something for the press. If you want me to hire someone reduce the enormous paperwork and tax burden that goes with being an employer.

  3. I’m with Dave, the government needs to reduce it’s “footprint” on SMB hiring by reducing paperwork/reporting/regulation. Basically the government needs to get out of the way.

  4. A whole bunch of nothing.
    Still nothing to help me buy the equipment I need. Oh yeah and Bank of America took away my line of credit that I had not even used yet. (saving it for the day the 4 ton a/c unit goes out)….
    Let’s see…wait til 2014 for hopefully the ability to buy “reasonably”priced insurance… still can’t afford to hire help.
    Small business legislation is a joke.
    the SBA is a joke.
    Our goverment only cares about the B of A’s….cuz we don’t finance the politicians.

  5. Much of this was reported in empty photo ops multiple times in 2009 as if it had actually happened. It still hasn’t and likely won’t.

    Reporters supporting the politicians seem to do an ongoing very good job of reporting what the politicians SAY they are going to do. It would be refreshing for the reporters to go back through their own past reporting and report on what has ACTUALLY happened. There is an ever-widening gulf between the moving lips of the politicians and the feet-on-the-ground results.

    Oh, and leave the returned TARP money where it belongs – in the treasury reducing our staggering debt. The only people who would benefit from it using it to run up the debt are politicians looking to fund their favorite banks, and the banks themselves. Look what happened with the first $800 billion bank bailout. How did that work out for small business? What possible confidence should we have that throwing another $30 billion at more banks will do anything to bring balance to the small business credit crunch? Simply more politicians throwing more money at their reelection partners.