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CLINTON/GORE ON SMALL BUSINESS
Bill Clinton and Al Gore believe in business. They
believe in the marketplace. They know that
economic growth will be the best jobs program this
country will ever have. Small businesses create
most of the new jobs in this country and they need
to flourish if we are all to prosper.
America cannot afford another four years without a
strategy to make our economy grow again. We must
put an end to the era of rewarding outrageous
executive pay and shipping American jobs overseas
while leaving small businesses without basic
support.
Bill Clinton and Al Gore will make the change.
They will encourage small business people and
entrepreneurs to take risks, and reward those with
the patience, the courage, and the determination to
create new jobs. A Clinton/Gore Administration
will provide incentives for those who start new
businesses and develop new technologies. And it
will make sure that the small defense contractors
who helped win the Cold War don't get left out in
the cold.
Create incentives for small businesses to invest
- Offer a new enterprise tax credit that
provides a 50 percent tax exclusion for those
who take risks by making long-term investments
in new businesses.
- Provide a targeted investment tax credit to
encourage investment in new plants and
productive equipment here at home that we need
to compete in the global economy.
- Make permanent the research and development
tax credit to reward companies that invest in
ground-breaking technologies.
Contain small business health care costs
- Provide affordable, quality health care for
all Americans, while protecting small
businesses from rising health care costs.
- Phase in small employer and new business
health care responsibilities until costs are
reduced. In the interim their employees will
be covered by the public health care program
with co-payment requirements to discourage
over-utilization and encourage shared
responsibility.
- Stop underwriting practices that divide
Americans into small risk groups and raise the
cost of health care coverage for small
business. Institute a broad-based community
rating system to guarantee access, continuity
and renewability of coverage.
- Allow small businesses to buy into a public
health program if it is less expensive than
similar plans offered by private insurers.
- Promote managed competition by eliminating
barriers to small businesses that want to band
together to form larger groups to purchase
health insurance at lower prices.
Facilitate defense conversion for small defense
contractors
- Increase technical, financial, and marketing
assistance to Americas small businesses, which
will be critical in the provision of new,
high-tech jobs for former small defense
contractor employees.
- Provide small business conversion grants
through the Small Business Administration
(SBA) to help small defense contractors
finance their transition from defense to
civilian production.
- Create a small business Technical Extension
Service, based on the successful Agriculture
Extension and Minnesotas effective Project
Outreach Program, to give small businesses
easy access to technical expertise. A primary
goal of the Extension Service will be to
provide information on marketing, finance and
technology to assist firms converting to
civilian production.
- Require the SBA to set aside a percentage of
its loan program for successful small business
defense contractors attempting to convert to
civilian enterprise.
Increase small business exports and ensure fair
trade
- Work to create an open trading system and
support efforts to reduce trade barriers
through the General Agreement on Tariffs and
Trades (GATT).
- Pass a sharper, stronger Super 301 trade bill
to encourage our trading partners to permit US
goods access to their markets.
- Negotiate a North American Free Trade
Agreement to promote increased trade with
Mexico, but only if its fair to American
farmers and workers and contains provisions to
protect the environment.
Encourage small businesses to invest in rural
areas and inner-cities
- Set up a national network of small business
community development banks like the South
Shore Bank of Chicago and its rural
counterpart, the Southern Development
Bancorporation in Arkansas, to give low-income
entrepreneurs the tools they need to start new
businesses. Small business is the key to
employment in our cities and must be
encouraged. The South Shore Bank has proven
that free enterprise can flourish with the
proper financial support in the most
challenging of circumstances.
- Create urban enterprise zones to encourage
investment in inner-city development and
provide jobs for local residents.
- Rewrite and pass a stronger Community
Reinvestment Act that challenges banks to lend
to entrepreneurs and promotes development
projects that reinforce community and
neighborhood goals.
- Support the Minority Small Business Investment
Company and other programs that encourage
development of minority-owned small
businesses.
Expanded opportunity for small business
- In the last half of the 1980s, because of
Bill Clinton's leadership, the number of
manufacturing jobs in Arkansas grew at ten
times the national average. Much of the
growth was in small business. For example,
from 1979 to 1991, there was a 142 percent
increase in the number of Arkansas companies
exporting products. Nearly 75 percent of these
companies had less than 200 employees.
- For the year ending in May 1992, Arkansas
ranked second nationally in absolute creation
(+29,000) and second nationally in job growth
rate.
- Created the Arkansas Development Finance
Authority (ADFA) to provide a source of
long-term, low-interest, and fixed-rate
financing for economic development projects.
ADFA was among the first agencies in the
nation to develop an industrial bond pooling
program, which enables small businesses to
participate in the bond market and brings down
the net interest rate for Arkansas borrowers.
ADFAs flexible regulations have also brought
millions of out-of-state dollars into
Arkansas, and have provided 46 companies more
than $65 million in bond loans.
- Reorganized the non-profit Arkansas Capital
Corporation, which makes reduced interest
loans to small businesses that do not meet
requirements for conventional bank loans.
Between 1985 and April 1992, the ACC approved
more than $18 million in economic development
loans. The ACC also sponsored the formation
of the Arkansas Certified Development
Corporation, which serves as a vehicle for
long-term financing under an SBA program.
- Helped establish the private Southern
Development Bancorporation, which since 1988
has made more than $12 million in development
loans, mainly in Arkansas small businesses.
- Established a Linked Deposit Program, which
allows up to $50 million of state funds in
lending institutions to be loaned to small
businesses at below-market rates.
- Senator Gore is the author of the Small
Business Innovation Development Act of 1982
which directs the federal government to
provide a more equitable and effective
distribution of federal research and
development funds toward small businesses.
- Cosponsored numerous bills to encourage small
business ownership and maintain a favorable
tax policy for small business growth.
- Cosponsored the Small Business Capital
Formation Act, which would provide
preferential tax treatment for capital gains
on small business stock held over four years.
- Cosponsored a bill which would amend the
Internal Revenue Code to promote small
businesses. Support for minority businesses
- Bill Clinton created the Minority Business
Development Division of the Arkansas
Industrial Development Commission. The
Division has given $5.2 million in financial
assistance to minority-controlled businesses
in Arkansas and offers regular financial
advice.
- Created a Small Business Revolving Loan Fund
to provide loans to small and minority
businesses, mainly in rural areas.
- Al Gore cosponsored numerous bills designed to
encourage small business ownership and
maintain a favorable tax policy for small
business growth.
- Has consistently supported programs to assist
businesses owned by minorities and women.