Small Business

As a former small business owner, I know how difficult it is to compete, from making payroll to dealing with the skyrocketing costs of healthcare premiums.

Small business, as we all know, is the life blood of our communities.  They are responsible for creativity, innovation, and community investment.  A community that has strong small businesses is a strong and vibrant community.

Click here to view the Small Business Administration's profile of AZ-08

In the 111th Congress, I have supported the following legislation in Congress to back our small businesses:

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act
Included business tax incentives to create jobs and spur investment including:

• Allowing businesses to improve cash flow by providing a 5-year carryback of net operating losses (NOLs);
• Helping businesses quickly recover costs of new capital investments by extending the increased bonus depreciation for businesses making investments in new plants and equipment in 2009;
• Spurring small business investment by extending small business expensing, which doubles of the amount that small businesses can immediately write off on their taxes for capital investments and for purchase of new equipment in 2009;
• Providing small businesses with relief by repealing the onerous 3% withholding tax on payments to government contractors; and
• Providing incentives to create new jobs with business tax credits for hiring recently discharged unemployed veterans and youth.

Job Creation Through Entrepreneurship Act
First major overhaul to the Small Business Administration (SBA) in ten years, providing specialized entrepreneurial training and counseling to our nation’s veterans as well as expanding and improving some of the SBA’s most successful entrepreneurial development programs.  Entrepreneurial development programs helped create 73,000 jobs in 2008 alone and will be vital to our economic recovery.

Small Business Health Options Program (SHOP) Act
Provides a tax credit to small employers to offset the cost of health coverage.  SHOP’s rating reforms will make premiums more stable from year-to-year and more affordable for those who need coverage the most.  It will also give employers and employees an easier way to find coverage as well as offer new insurance options.

In the 110th Congress, I was proud to support:

Small Business Tax Relief Act
• Extends the Work Opportunity Tax Credit through August of 2011. Businesses that hire economically disadvantaged workers – including disabled veterans and workers in places where population is declining – will get a tax credit for paying those folks their much-needed wages. 
• It also includes a one-year extension of Section 179 Small Business Expensing, which allows small business owners buy and write off more equipment each year for use in their trade or business. The bill immediately increases the amount that may be written off each year from $112,000 to $125,000.  When a married couple jointly owns a small business, this bill makes sure they both get credit for paying Social Security and Medicare taxes.

Small Business Fairness in Contracting Act
• Expands and changes the definition of “contract bundling” to allow more small business to compete for government contract.
• Strengthens the bundling appeals process by providing for third-party review, and allowing for trade associations to raise concerns on behalf of their small businesses.
• Provides greater opportunities for small businesses to compete in the federal marketplace. The bill increases the small business contracting goal to 30% and applies that goal to overseas contracts.
• Requires the creation of a private database that will allow small businesses to market to prime contractors that need to meet their goals.
• Provides increased oversight and independent audits to assure contracts are coded correctly to be sure we are actually meeting our target of 30% small business contract.

The Small Business Lending Improvements Act
• Allows the Small Business Administration to contribute to borrower and lender fees associated with 7(a) Small Business Start Up Loans.
• Directs the Administrator to carry out a rural lending outreach program, guaranteeing small loans to small businesses in Rural Areas.
• Permanently expands the Community Express Pilot Program for loans of $250,000 or less to small businesses whose majority ownership is held by women, Native Americans, socially or economically disadvantaged individuals, veterans, or members of the reserves, and to businesses in a low- or moderate-income area.
• Requires the Administrator to provide loans to small businesses in health professional shortage area that provide medical, dental, or psychiatric services, and guaranteeing 90% of the loan and reduce Lender and Borrower fees by 50 percent.
• Directs SBA to carry out an Increased Veteran Participation Program to small businesses whose majority ownership is held by veterans or members of the reserves, guaranteeing 90 percent of such loan, and eliminates the borrower and lender fees.

SBA Entrepreneurial Development Programs Act
• Allows Small Business Development Centers (SBDCs) to apply for an additional grant to carry out: a capital access initiative program; a disaster recovery program; an innovation and competitiveness services to manufacturers initiative program; a mature entrepreneurs assistance program; or a small business sustainability initiative program.
• Provides Grant funding to SBDC’s to assist in securing affordable health insurance for small businesses and their employees.
• Directs SBA to establish a program to provide regulatory compliance assistance to small businesses through selected SBDCs.

SBA Veterans' Programs Act
• Helps veterans through grants, information services, and personal assistance to evaluate business opportunities and become entrepreneurs in their own right.
• Focuses on providing our veterans with the market research, financial options and technological training important to becoming successful in today’s business world.
• In addition to increasing the number of Veteran Outreach Centers across the country, H.R. 2366 would also ensure that women veterans are made aware of opportunities in their local communities.

SBA Women’s Business Programs Act
• Restores the balance of funding between new and existing Women’s Business Centers that was originally envisioned at the start of the program.
• Offers a helping hand to newly established centers while slowly weaning older centers off of dependency on federal grant funds.
• This legislation will ultimately allow existing centers to thrive while simultaneously freeing up funding to support the establishment of new centers in underserved communities.

SBIR/STTR Reauthorization Act
• The SBIR/STTR Reauthorization Act extends for a period of two years the Federal government's largest small business research and development programs. Notably, the legislation increases funding for small research firms by half a billion dollars. The legislation modernizes the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program so that it is sync with the needs of small research firms and can continue to increase the global competitiveness of the U.S. economy.
• Encourages greater participation in SBIR and STTR - The Act includes a number of provisions designed to encourage more small firms to apply for SBIR and STTR awards. The bill more than doubles the size of SBIR and STTR awards for Phase I and Phase II grants. It also provides access to technical assistance and places an emphasis on research on alternative fuels and orphan diseases.
• Congresswoman Giffords’ amendment would mandate that SBIR awardees must be entities with their primary business operations in the United States. This will keep the full benefits from these taxpayer-funded small business research and development programs in the United States.

Investment in America
• Would strengthen and make permanent the R&D tax credit.
• At a time of increasing globalization, America’s prosperity depends more than ever on its capacity for innovation. For decades, our nation’s leadership in basic and applied research has led to discoveries that have dramatically improved living standards around the world and given rise to new industries that have in turn created millions of new jobs.
• In 2004, companies large and small spent $208 billion on R&D performed in the US, with 62% of those expenditures coming from firms with less than 25,000 employees and 18% from firms with fewer than 500 employees. Companies that performed R&D reported net sales of $5.6 trillion in 2004.

Equity for Our Nation's Self-Employed Act
• Would make it easier for small businesses to purchase quality health insurance at affordable rates for these companies and their employees. 
• Corrects an inequity in the tax code that prevents the self-employed from enjoying the same tax benefits on the cost of health insurance as their counterparts in other business sectors.