President Barack Obama said in his State of the Union address that jobs have to be the nation’s main focus in 2010. And he thinks those jobs will come from small business growth.
“We should start where most new jobs do, in small businesses, companies that begin when an entrepreneur takes a chance on a dream, or a worker decides it’s time to become her own boss,” Obama said.
President Barack Obama delivers his State of the Union address Wednesday. (AP photo)
Obama paraded out some of his older ideas for helping small business, including an elimination of capital gains taxes on small-business investments and the creation of a tax credit for small businesses that hire employees or give pay raises. He also talked about using $30 billion from the Troubled Asset Relief Program to inject capital to community banks for in small businesses loans.
Business owners and lobbying groups reacted to the speech Wednesday night and earlier today.
Some small business advocates question the effectiveness of the president’s plan. Read more about that in an article from the Washington Business Journal.
Seattle-area small business owners reacted with a little skepticism, according to a report from KIRO Radio.
“I heard a lot of good things and I’m just hoping that it’s not a lot of rhetoric,” Dani Cone, owner of High 5 Pie in Seattle, told KIRO. “I want to see the incentives, I want to see the jobs, and I want to see the banks loosen up.”
Know a small business you think we should write about? Contact Herald writer Amy Rolph at arolph@heraldnet.com.
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