Abed and Cochran Urge Legislature to Support Small Businesses, Pass Stalled Jobs Plan
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Tuesday, Oct. 9, 2012 |
Contact: Katie Carey Phone: (616) 240-3701 |
Abed and Cochran Urge Legislature to Support Small Businesses, Pass Stalled Jobs Plan
Legislative package will spark job creation, strengthen small businesses
GRAND LEDGE – Theresa Abed, Democratic candidate for the state House of Representatives in the 71st District, and Tom Cochran, Democratic candidate for the 67th House District, today called on the Legislature to approve proposals to increase access to capital for small businesses and start-ups, and pass a long-stalled jobs plan. Introduced in the Legislature but ignored by Republicans, the proposals would strengthen small businesses, spur entrepreneurship and put people back to work.
“Eaton County relies on its small businesses for jobs and economic growth, yet the House Republicans instead focused on large corporations giving them $1.8 billion in tax breaks,” said Abed. “We are risking Michigan’s economic security if we don’t support proposals such as those offered by the House Democrats to assist small businesses because they are the real job creators in our communities.”
“We need our small businesses to succeed if we want our communities to grow and if we want to continue to see unemployment numbers drop,” said Cochran. “House Republicans are being shortsighted by refusing to consider the House Democrats’ small business plan. When I go to Lansing, I will immediately work hard with Theresa and our colleagues to pass meaningful legislation to support small businesses.”
Abed and Cochran support proposals to:
§ Provide an angel-investor tax credit, House Bill 5183, to encourage private backers to get involved with businesses in their early stages. This investment often happens before businesses are able to secure traditional financing. An angel-investor tax credit program would be transparent and include strong accountability measures to track its success.
§ Expand small businesses’ access to capital by allowing endowments and trusts with Michigan credit unions and community banks to lend to small businesses. House Bills 5168 through 5173 would expand the capital lending for these institutions so that they can make more loans to small businesses.
Michigan has an estimated 180,000 small businesses, 158,000 of which employ fewer than 20 people, according to the Small Business Administration using the most recent data from 2008. Small businesses represent 98.3 percent of Michigan employers and are responsible for 51.6 percent of private sector jobs in the state, according to the SBA. In Michigan, 80 percent of businesses fail by their tenth year because they don’t have access to capital.[1]
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