House Republicans Hope to Remove Obstacles for Small Businesses


According to a recent Gallup poll, more than one quarter of small business owners said an increase in revenues what would be what stimulates them to hire new employees in the coming year. One in five said an overall improvement in the economy would lead them to hire, while 17 percent reported that expansion plans would cause them to create new jobs.

cutting red tape

In essence, if the economy picks up and people start spending, small businesses will create new jobs. Consumer demand is crucial.

This week, House Republican leaders plan to vote on several bills that seek to remove obstacles to small businesses seeking capital. The proposals aim to help small businesses by lifting regulations that make it difficult for entrepreneurs for to obtain investment financing.

One bill would lift a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) regulation that discourages small companies from using advertising and direct mail to solicit private funding from wealthy investors. Another measure would enable investors to fund startups up to $10,000 via the Internet without requiring the firm to register with the SEC. (This would benefit companies seeking to raise capital through crowdsourcing.)

A third proposal would double the number of shareholders that firms could have before requiring that they register with the SEC. A fourth bill would boost the number of shareholders allowed for small banks to 2,000.

While these proposals aren’t enough to kick-start the economy on their own, they are a good sign that government leaders are looking at innovative ways to help small business growth. Since companies that employ 500 people or fewer create the lion’s share of new private sector jobs in the U.S. economy, the measures also may help lessen the U.S. unemployment rate.

4 Comments ▼

Rohit Arora Rohit Arora, CEO and Co-founder of Biz2Credit, is one of the country's leading experts in small business finance. Since its founding in 2007, Biz2Credit has arranged $800M in small business loans and has helped thousands of entrepreneurs. Rohit was named Crain's NY Business "Entrepreneur of the Year 2011."

4 Reactions
  1. Yay! The Republicans are coming to our rescue!

    Please. Speaking as a former contributor to the Republicans, they’ve done nothing for the last year except try to take down Obama.

    Mitch McConnell said it himself – their #1 priority is to make Barack Obama a one-term president. The Republicans have been kneecapping the economy for well over a year now, and even some of their own are admitting to it.

    Nice puff piece for the GOP. You should be proud.

  2. I’m all for removing regulations on SMBs, regardless of who pushes for it.

  3. Good article, but OH Please needs to get a life. These bills are very important to small business, whether from the Republican side or the Democrat side. Kudos to Rohit for making this public to many of us that wouldn’t have seen it in the main stream media.

  4. I have met with over a thousand small business owners and I have never yet had one of them say, “I don’t think I’m going to expand and try to make more money because my taxes are too high.” Some complain about “government regulations” but then when I ask what regulation that want changed none can ever name one. No, the real issue is demand. We need more consumers out there with more money in their pockets. The rest is just rhetoric and demagoguery. The debt, the budget, the politics–real small business owners might name them as excuses but they are not the reasons for their malaise.