Small Business
Rep. Chu at a hearing on promoting small business development in Pasadena. (From SGV Tribune).
"Small business is the key. It creates 2 out of every 3 new jobs. It is my mission as a member of the Small Business Committee to help small businesses do what they do best: create good jobs, drive innovation, and strengthen the middle class."
- Rep. Judy Chu
Helping small businesses grow and hire is at the core of the American Jobs Act that the President announced. Entrepreneurs and small business owners – America’s biggest job creators – are looking to Congress to enact these powerful, bipartisan, specific, paid-for proposals as quickly as possible. The American Jobs Act will help small businesses continue doing what they do best: create good jobs, drive competitiveness and innovation, and strengthen economic security for the middle class. In Washington, I am fighting to create jobs, strengthen small business and turnaround our economy.
My small business priorities include:
Delivering Contracts to Small Business
Expanding Access to Capital
Entrepreneur Growth Act
Helping Small Business Discover New Customers: Exporting
Delivering Contracts to Small Business
As the Ranking Member of the Contracting and Workforce Subcommittee, I am California’s leading advocate for small businesses in Washington. With small businesses making up more than 99 percent of all American companies, but receiving fewer than one-quarter of federal contracts, my focus is to ensure small businesses receive the economic benefits of federal contacts and create jobs in communities across the nation. For each one percent increase in the share of contracts going to small businesses, 100,000 new jobs are created. With unemployment above 9 percent, it is my number one priority to bring more entrepreneurs into the federal procurement marketplace.
Expanding Access to Capital
All businesses need access to capital to buy equipment, fulfill orders and send their products to consumers. The economic downturn tightened an already underserved market in lending for small businesses. That’s why I strongly supported a $30 billion federal small business lending fund that provided 191 community banks across the country with funding to increase lending to small businesses.
But the Small Business Administration should also directly make loans to those who have been turned down by banks but have good credit, and ease the requirements for Microloans, so we can give the smallest of entrepreneurs a chance. This will help small businesses expand, create jobs and ensure more families can make it in America.
Entrepreneur Growth Act
A critical segment of small businesses are self-employed individuals who are still developing their businesses. Creating one’s own job and owning a business has long been heralded as the path to financial success and self-fulfillment in the United States, and for some, self-employment is the best possible source of employment and income.
Economists are now even saying that young, developing businesses are the key drivers of economic growth. This is especially true in minority communities where economic growth has a much bigger positive effect on the local communities. Minorities hire minorities and they start businesses in economically distressed areas. However, in these tough economic times, microenterprises are struggling and we need to do all we can to make sure that self-employment is still a path to financial success.
The toughest time of the year for any business and especially microentrepreneurs is tax time. But it is also a great opportunity for these businesses to start better financial planning and business development. That is why I introduced a bill called the Entrepreneur Growth Act that will create a grant program that would offer free business tax assistance to low-income entrepreneurs and get the critical business development services they need to grow. Providing business tax preparation services to low-income self-employed individuals builds their businesses and promotes asset-building for low-income households. This program will help microentrepreneurs save money and ensure that they access all the tax credits for which they are eligible. Nearly 9.8 million people are self-employed and by building their economic security and helping them grow their business we drive American job growth.
Helping Small Business Discover New Customers: Exporting
The one thing businesses say they need during these tough times is: customers. The lack of consumer demand at home has taken its toll on our small businesses. We needed to do more to create an economy of the future where companies can create jobs by shipping American-made products overseas. Foreign markets can serve as an important tool to boost sales and offset lower demand at home. Unfortunately, businesses just cannot say “I want to export” today, and tomorrow have a new market at their fingertips. That is why I hosted an exporting workshop for local businesses to discover how they can tap into new markets. And that’s why I am supporting funding for the National Export Initiative that’s bringing these new markets closer to our small businesses. Soon these businesses will be exporting their way to recovery.
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