Washington, D.C. –Congressman Rick Berg today joined the House is passing the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act, a bipartisan legislative package designed to jumpstart the economy and restore opportunities for America’s small businesses.  The JOBS Act was passed with overwhelming bipartisan support, by a vote of 390 – 23.

“In visiting with small businesses across North Dakota and as someone who has started a small business, I understand how senseless regulatory barriers and bureaucratic hoops can stand as road blocks to business growth and job creation.  With national unemployment remaining unacceptably high, small businesses should empowered to invest and create jobs, not held back by red tape,” Berg stated. “The bipartisan JOBS Act will spur economic growth by making it easier for start-ups to grow and create jobs and allowing our small businesses to invest in local economies. I strongly urge the Senate to support the job-creating legislation approved by the House today and pass it quickly.”

The JOBS Act is a compilation of bipartisan House bills that will provide real solutions to encourage job growth by removing several regulations that hold back small businesses and startups. 

The bipartisan measures that make up the JOBS Act will increase capital formation, spur the growth of startups and small businesses, and pave the way for more small-scale businesses to go public and create more jobs.

A member of the House Ways and Means Committee, Berg has worked to limit government regulation on American small businesses by co-sponsoring the REINS Act and the TRAIN Act, which requires all new regulations to receive approval from Congress and would ensure that the costs of all new regulations are assessed before implementation. Berg also serves as a member of the Congressional Job Creators Caucus.

Berg also launched the REGS Agenda last year as part of his efforts to reduce regulatory red tape, empower states, growth the economy, and stop President Obama’s regulatory overreach.  The product of Berg’s conversations with North Dakotans this past year about the impact of senseless regulations, the REGS Agenda will work to help America’s small businesses create jobs by reining in the overbearing regulations that stand as road blocks to economic growth and job creation and reducing the regulatory uncertainty hanging over America’s small businesses.  More information about Berg’s REGS Agenda may be found here.

Background

The following bills are part of the JOBS Act:

• H.R. 3606, the Reopening American Capital Markets to Emerging Growth Companies Act of 2011- makes it easier for more small and medium size companies to access the capital markets by reducing the cost of going public
• H.R. 2940- removes the regulatory ban that prevents small, privately held companies from using advertisements to solicit accredited investors across the country
• H.R. 2930- removes SEC restrictions that prevent “crowdfunding” so entrepreneurs can raise equity capital from a large pool of small investors who may or may not be considered “accredited” by the SEC
• H.R. 1070, the “Small Company Capital Formation Act”- makes it easier for small businesses to go public by increasing the offering threshold for companies exempted from SEC registration from $5 million to $50 million
• H.R. 2167, the “Private Company Flexibility and Growth Act”- removes an impediment to capital formation for small companies by raising the shareholder threshold for mandatory registration with the SEC from 500 to 1,000 shareholders.
• H.R. 4088, the “Capital Expansion Act”- raises the threshold for mandatory registration under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 from 500 shareholders to 2,000 shareholders for all banks and bank holding companies and raises the shareholder deregistration threshold from 300 shareholders to 1,200 shareholders.

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