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GARDINER: ...know what it's like, because I've been turned down for some myself in my
business career, and it's a tough business for small business owners.
BREY: Thanks, I'll be quick cause I know everybody has questions for the important people surrounding
me.
I just want to say that since I started my business -
HOYER: One of the important people here is speaking right now.
BREY: Since I started my business, I've discovered that it's really common for some politicians
to bandy about the words "small business" and "jobs" when they are seeking votes. But
I have also found that it is far less common for those politicians to take the time to
craft legislation that acutally does support small businesses. I think that these Representatives
and Senators have done just that. They've really drilled down to identify things that
really do help companies like mine survive, grow, and create jobs. These Congresspeople
have done that, and this bill does that. There's a lot of stuff in here, way too much for me
to cover in the few seconds I have, there's more than 20 provisions I think. But as somebody
who has grown his business from a few hundred thousand dollars a year to over 4 million
with the help of SBA loans, I support the changes that this bill makes. These are changes
that make SBA loans more accessible to, and less costly for small companies, and making
those programs more enticing to small banks. Real quick, there are 2 other favorites I
have in here. Enhancing the Section 179 rules makes it easier for a company like mine to
open more locations and these changes make it easier for myself and landlords to approve
the locations we already have.
In 2008, my company lost money for the first time since I started. These weren't paper
losses, this was real cash out of my pocket. The temporary changes that were made to the
loss carry back in 2008 gave us immediate relief. Having seen those benefits first hand,
I support making those changes permanent, as this bill does. Like I said in the beginning,
there are a lot of good things in this bill for small business. These are not nebulous,
theoretical empty promises. But instead, what have here is a piece of legislation, that
gets right down to the business of helping small businesses. And I know this for a fact.
Because my business and my employees have already benefitted from some of the provisions
that are now made permanent in this bill. And now thousands of other businesses and
their millions of employees will also be able to reap those same benefits. Thanks for having
me. Thanks for allowing me to speak in support of this bill.
HOYER: Thank you very much, Terry and Michael in particular. The American people know you're
the important people. Because we talk about these, we pass a law, but if that does not
convert into real economic activity, real jobs, for real people, then frankly it's all
talk. Thank you very much. And Terry, thank you very much for your leadership in small
business and for your knowledge of how we put this bill together in a bi-partisan fashion.
As you know, this bill has been on the table and through the House for some period of time.
I am very pleased that finally 2 Republican Senators decided to support this. It is ironic
and unfortunate that the only 2 Republican Senators that supported it are not running
for re-election, in Ohio and in Florida.
I will close with this. Somebody asked me coming in "What's your theme?" I forget who
it was who asked me that question as we came in. And our theme is "Make it in America."
We believe there are an awful lot of people who are not sure that they are going to make
it in America. Obviously the economy has a lot to do with psychology, has a lot to do
whether or not people think they can succeed and have opportunities. We want to reinstate
confidence that Americans need to have and should have in the fact that they are going
to make it in American and their children are goin to make it in America. And one of
the ways we're going to do that, not the only way, is we're going to focus on making IT
in America, whatever IT is. Manufacturing it in America. Because we know that those
kinds of jobs create good paying, good benefits, job-producing enterprises. So we're please
to be here, because this is a component part of that, we think, as I've said, has been
scorged by the analysts, at the opportunity to create 500,000 jobs.
Let me stop with that. We've to to go quickly unfortunately. We were really late coming
in.