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Reid: Senate will act on small business bills

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) promised Monday that the Senate would promptly take up a package of House-passed small business bills.

Reid has indicated that there are differences between the House legislation – called the JOBS or Jumpstart Our Business Start-ups Act -- and the version that Senate leaders prefer. For example, Reid said reauthorizing the Export-Import Bank is critical; that was not part of the House bill.

“I suggest to everyone here that I know how important this is to get finished,” Reid said on the Senate floor Monday afternoon. “I don’t need anyone to suggest that we’re not going to do that. We are.”

The Nevada Democrat said he wants to complete work on the bill in this work period. The Senate is in session until the week of April 2. He also said the Senate had not yet received the House bill, which a spokesman for Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) disputed.

“The House sent the JOBS Act to the Senate last Thursday,” spokesman Michael Steel said in an e-mail.

Reid’s comments were prompted when Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) asked for unanimous consent to take up the House-passed JOBS Act, which passed the lower chamber last week with an overwhelming 390-23 majority.

Both House and Senate Republicans have been ratcheting up pressure on Reid to take up the House’s version of the JOBS Act – a package of bills that would ease various Securities and Exchange Commission regulations and is intended to make it easier for small businesses to go public and subsequently hire workers.

“This pro-growth approach on capital formation represents a truly bipartisan plan for encouraging job creation and restoring a healthy economy,” Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) wrote in a POLITICO op-ed Monday. “Congress may at last seize the opportunity to make a real difference in the lives of Americans across the country.”

President Barack Obama also supports measures to loosen those regulations, and if Congress sends a bill to his desk, that could mark a rare show of bipartisanship in an election year expected to be filled with political discord.

Democrats largely support the JOBS Act, but leaders still have dismissed it as not aggressive enough to turn around the economy.

“It’s not going to create a lot of jobs, but it’s important legislation,” Reid said.

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Martin Kady

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