Senator Coons stands with startup businesses

Senator Coons spoke Wednesday at the first annual New Castle County Economic Development Luncheon.  The lunch discussion focused on ways to foster and develop a strong economic and entrepreneurial system in New Castle County and across Delaware.  

Chris reiterated his commitment to Delaware startups, noting that new businesses are powerful drivers of job creation and economic recovery. Over a 25 year period between 1980 and 2005, most of the net new jobs in America – about 40 million jobs – were created by firms that were five years old or less.  

Since he arrived in the Senate, Chris has used his private sector experience to shape a number of job creating pieces of legislation that support innovative startups and entrepreneurs. He has especially focused on making the Research and Development Tax Credit available to newer businesses, in addition to more established companies.

To read more about Chris’ work supporting job creation and economic competitiveness, click here.

Senator Coons helps kick off entrepreneurship program

Last week, Senator Coons took part in a launch celebration unveiling the new Horn Program in Entrepreneurship at UD.

Made possible by a generous gift from Charles and Patricia Horn, this program will encourage students to pursue the kind of entrepreneurial ideas that will power Delaware’s economy for years to come.

The Horn program will enhance and expand entrepreneurial studies at UD and be made up of a variety of initiatives like the Venture Development Center, a student business incubator, Hen Hatch, UD’s premier startup funding competition and an annual President’s Forum on Innovation and Entrepreneurship. It will also support new curricular offerings at both the undergraduate and graduate levels.

Chris believes that supporting our innovators and entrepreneurs is critical to our economic recovery. 

To read more about his work to create jobs and promote American economic competitiveness, click here.

Report highlights importance of infrastructure investments

The American Society of Civil Engineers recently published a new report making clear the economic necessity of investing in our nation’s infrastructure. The report, entitled Failure to Act: The Economic Impact of Current Investment Trends in Airports, Inland Waterways, and Marine Ports Infrastructure, highlights the broad economic repercussions of failing to invest in our nation’s trading centers.

The report’s economic findings demonstrate the urgent need for significant investment in our aging infrastructure—for our continued productivity, our economic competitiveness and the affordability of the millions of household goods that traverse our ports. An investment of $15.8 billion is needed by 2020, the report finds, to close the funding gap and accommodate trade growth in our marine ports and inland waterways. The stakes are high. If we fail to close the gap, the report estimates cumulative losses of $697 billion in GDP, $1.3 trillion in business sales, $872 billion in disposable personal income, and $270 billion in exports By 2040, these losses reach into the trillions of dollars.

Senator Coons has been an outspoken advocate for infrastructure investment, co-sponsoring legislation such as the Building and Upgrading Infrastructure for Long-Term Development Act,the Rebuild America Jobs Act and the Harbor Maintenance Act that invest in America’s future while providing high wage, high skill jobs for American workers.

The Port of Wilmington plays a critical role in Delaware’s economy, transporting more than five million tons of goods and generating nearly $30 million in state tax revenue each year. The port’s operations provide jobs for 5,000 Delawareans and planned expansions could create up to 75,000 jobs in the region. The Delaware River Deepening Project, slated for completion in 2017, would dredge the Delaware River from a depth of 40 feet to 45 feet, which will attract larger, more efficient cargo ships and increase Wilmington’s competiveness on the Eastern Seaboard. Chris is committed to ensuring its completion and will keep fighting to make sure the Port of Wilmington has the resources it needs to thrive.

House companion to Startup Act 2.0 introduced

This week, members of the U.S. House introduced a bipartisan companion to the Startup Act 2.0, which was introduced in the Senate by Senator Coons, along with Senators Moran, Rubio and Warner.

The House companion to the Startup Act 2.0, introduced by Reps. Michael Grimm (R-NY) and Loretta Sanchez (D-CA), shows continued strong, bipartisan momentum for this important legislation to jump-start our economy and help businesses grow and create jobs.

“Startup 2.0 is about creating American jobs,” Rep. Grimm said in a press release. “Too often we educate the world’s best and brightest in STEM fields, only to send them back to countries like India and China to open businesses and compete against us. This bill will keep top talent here in the U.S. to build businesses that hire Americans, and drive U.S. innovation and competitiveness.”

“As our economy continues to recover, we must further enable our entrepreneurs to grow and to create jobs,” Rep. Sanchez said in a press release.  “Startup 2.0 legislation is a natural follow-up to our efforts to jumpstart the economy and it is exactly the kind of legislation the United States needs to keep up with India, China and the rest of the global market.”

Senator Coons joined his colleagues on the Senate floor for a colloquy on the Startup Act 2.0 earlier this week. Click here to watch.

What We’re Reading: Millennials more likely to start businesses

USA Today reported Sunday that young Americas are more inclined to launch their own start-up businesses, despite the current tough economic climate. Several factors play into Millennials’ tendency to be more open to entrepreneurship in the early stages of their careers. 

"Generation Y is the most entrepreneurial generation ever," said Jeff Cornwall, director of the Center for Entrepreneurship at Belmont University in Nashville. "Parents raised their children to be independent," Cornwall said.

When Cornwall wanted to start an entrepreneurial program at Belmont in the 1980s, "There were only about a dozen universities with this type of program — now, there are over 2,000," he said. Belmont University touts a success rate of having 36.8% of entrepreneur majors and minors operating their own businesses post-graduation.

According to a 2012 report by the Kauffman Foundation, the largest entrepreneurial foundation in the U.S., 29.4% of entrepreneurs were 20 to 34 years old, and roughly 160,000 start-ups a month were led by Millennials in 2011.

Senator Chris Coons has been an advocate for helping startup businesses expand and create jobs. In November, Chris introduced the AGREE Act with Republican Senator Marco Rubio, which stems from areas of common agreement between the President’s jobs plan, recommendations from the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, and plans put forward by both parties in Congress. On Tuesday, the AGREE Act expanded with the introduction of the Startup Act 2.0, which takes elements from both the AGREE Act and Senators Warner and Moran’s Startup Act.

Click here to read the full article on USA Today’s website.

Click here to learn more about Chris’ work on create jobs in Delaware.  

Budget Analysis: Manufacturing and competitiveness

In reviewing President Obama’s budget proposal, Senator Coons was especially interested in programs to create good-quality jobs and help Delaware and America compete and win in a global economy.

To achieve these goals, Chris has actively supported manufacturing programs, as well investments in research and development, in previous legislation.  President Obama zeroed in on some of these same solutions in his budget. Highlights include:

• Manufacturing Tax Incentives.  The budget plan includes tax incentives for manufacturers who create jobs here and doubles the deduction for advanced manufacturing.  It also ends tax deductions for shipping jobs overseas and creates a Manufacturing Communities Tax Credit to encourage investment in communities affected by job loss.

• Innovation Corps.  The Administration proposes $19 million for a new public-private “Innovation Corps” program aimed at bringing together the technological, entrepreneurial, and business know-how necessary to bring discoveries ripe for innovation out of the university lab.

• Research and Development. The budget blueprint makes the R&D tax credit permanent, an idea Senator Coons strongly supports and has introduced as legislation because of its importance to economic competitiveness. The budget proposal includes an overall number of $140.8 billion for R&D and increases the level of investment in non-defense R&D by 5 percent from the 2012 level as well as provides $2.2 billion for advanced manufacturing R&D, a 19% increase over 2012.

• International Trade Administration.  Proposed funding for this program, which promotes exports and trade enforcement, is increased by $60 million, or 14%.

Senator Coons calls for new R&D tax credit for innovative small businesses

From Roll Call: Senator Chris Coons, a member of the Senate Budget Committee and Congressional Manufacturing Caucus, authored an op-ed that appeared in Tuesday’s edition of Roll Call on the need for an R&D tax credit for innovative start-up businesses.

Over the past three decades, the research and development tax credit has helped tens of thousands of successful American companies create jobs by incentivizing investment in innovation. There is little doubt that it has strengthened our economy and deserves to be made permanent. But with America’s global manufacturing competitiveness at stake, it’s time Congress shows the same type of support for entrepreneurs and young companies.

Small and startup businesses are driving our nation’s economic recovery and creating jobs by taking risks to turn their ideas into marketable products. Over the past few decades, firms that were younger than five years old were responsible for the overwhelming majority of new jobs in this country.

There are plenty of federal programs designed to help traditional small businesses — retail stores, service providers, restaurants and others — grow from employing one person to employing 10 people, but how do we help the “gazelle” companies reach their potential and grow from employing five people to employing 50? Or 500? Or 5,000?

For these innovators to grow and create jobs, we have to support them in their critical early stages.

Click here to read the op-ed in Roll Call.

Click her to learn more about Chris’ work to support job creation.

SOTU Analysis: New markets for American products

In today’s global economy, it is critical for American businesses to be able to sell their goods and services to customers overseas. President Obama focused on trade as an important element of our economic recovery in his State of the Union address this week, saying “I will go anywhere in the world to open new markets for American products.”

Senator Coons has been fighting to ensure Delaware businesses have access to the more than 95 percent of the world’s consumers who live outside the United States. Earlier this year, he supported a free trade deal with the Republic of Korea, noting that Korean company Harim’s investments in Delaware’s poultry industry clearly demonstrate the value of strong trade relations with Korea.

However, President Obama also laid out solutions for addressing trade relationships that don’t go quite so smoothly. In his address and an accompanying policy memo, he announced the creation of a new Trade Enforcement Unit to investigate unfair trade practices around the world. Chris is currently working with the U.S. Trade Representative to try and resolve an issue like this, where India has put unfair restrictions on American poultry.

President Obama also announced enhanced trade inspections, procedures which would be made easier by bipartisan legislation Chris authored with Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), which would allow U.S. Customs and Border Protection legal access to tools like UPC codes and product samples that help them track counterfeit products coming in to the U.S.  Chris also co-sponsored legislation to provide more resources to support trade enforcement that has been signed into the law of the land.

When it comes to trade, the most important tool we can provide to American businesses is a level playing field, and the new efforts announced last night will help ensure no foreign company has an advantage over products that are “Made in the USA, Manufactured in Delaware.”

Click here to read more about Chris’ work on job creation.

SOTU Analysis: Creating jobs by strengthening manufacturing

In his address to the nation last night, President Obama laid out his plan for a retooled American economy that works for everyone. He made clear that a competitive, innovative manufacturing sector will be a critical building block of that economy, saying “this blueprint begins with American manufacturing.”

This is a vision certainly shared by Senator Coons.

In the last two years, American manufacturing has grown at its fastest rate in decades, adding 334,000 new jobs since January 2010. We added 23,000 manufacturing jobs in December alone.

“We have a huge opportunity, at this moment, to bring manufacturing back — but we have to seize it,” President Obama said.

The question is what to do to harness that momentum in hopes of facilitating a manufacturing renaissance in this country.

In his address and accompanying strategy, President Obama proposed a series of initiatives designed to harness the momentum the manufacturing sector is already experiencing. Chief among them are incentives for American companies to bring their manufacturing jobs back to the United States.

“If you’re an American manufacturer, you should get a bigger tax cut,” President Obama said. “If you’re a high-tech manufacturer, we should double the tax deduction you get for making products here.  And if you want to relocate in a community that was hit hard when a factory left town, you should get help financing a new plant, equipment, or training for new workers.”

President Obama also called for the Research and Development Tax Credit to be expanded and made permanent – something Senator Coons strongly supports and has introduced legislation to do.

Senator Coons has met with manufacturers across Delaware and turned their ideas into legislative action, building bipartisan support for new tax credits to support local manufacturers and ensure quality  products are “Made in America, Manufactured in Delaware.”

Click here to read more about Chris’ ideas for promoting job creation. 

State of the Union and manufacturing jobs

All eyes turn to Capitol Hill tonight, where the President of the United States will deliver the State of the Union address at 9:00 p.m. One of the themes Senator Coons expects the President to discuss is the critical importance of ensuring American manufacturers stay competitive. 

Chris has been a leader on this issue, fighting to make sure quality products are “Made in America, Manufactured in Delaware.” He has reached across the aisle to build bipartisan support for legislation he drafted with Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, called the AGREE Act, which will help local small businesses access capital and recruit talented, high-skilled workers, and invests in research and development by making that tax credit permanent.

In the President’s address to the nation tonight, Chris hopes to hear a continued commitment to American manufacturing, following up on the Administration’s recent report on “insourcing” and previous launch of a new Office of Manufacturing Policy. Specifically, Chris would like to hear the President call on Congress to quickly pass tax incentives for companies that bring manufacturing jobs back to America and lay out plans for job training initiatives and education, particularly for students perusing technical degrees.     

Click here to read more about Chris’ ideas for promoting job creation.