Obama’s support of small businesses topic of October event

An open house will take place next month to discuss President Obama’s accomplishments in helping small businesses, outline his vision and goals to move the country forward, and talk about energy independence. Small N.H. business owners who support the president’s re-election, and those who would like to learn more about the president’s plan to help grow the local green economy will attend the event, which will host a speaker from the national Obama campaign.

The small-business forum takes place at 12:30 p.m. on Monday, Oct.1, at the offices of the Green Alliance, 75 Congress St, Suite 304, in downtown Portsmouth.

Small-businesses owners and other citizens are encouraged to attend.

It’s cliché to say the “stakes are high” in the coming presidential election. But they are. And conventional wisdom says business owners should not be politically active. But how then does a socially responsible, progressive business owner decide to participate in the political process? The Oct. 1 event is one way.

“I can’t afford as a business owner to stay on the sidelines,” says Green Alliance Director Sarah Brown. “The health of the Green Alliance and the work we are trying to accomplish --  the building of a strong local green economy --  is very much affected by who is in the White House.”

The Green Alliance is a union of local sustainable businesses promoting environmentally sound business practices and a green citizen’s co-op offering discounted green products and services to its members.

Republicans claim they represent small-business people, but they really represent big business, says Brown, adding, “They’re the party of corporations, not the little guy trying to build a home-grown business. As such, by definition, the GOP does not represent small-business owners, and health care is just one example.”

Before Obamacare, many small businesses couldn’t afford to provide health insurance to their employees. “I can’t afford to give my employees, or myself, health insurance,” Brown says. “I couldn’t even come close. I couldn’t afford to give my employees the things that big businesses can do, and yet we have four employees and provide support to over 100 green businesses in the region; something is wrong with this equation.”

Thanks to the new health care law, small businesses are now eligible for tax credits to help cover thecost of their employees’ health care. This helps small businesses afford insurance for their workers and compete with larger companies, saving an average small business with 10 workers up to $35,000 a year, which will increase to up to $50,000 when those tax credits expand in 2014.

Small businesses pay up to 18 percent more than large businesses for the same health coverage. Starting in 2014, they’ll have the same purchasing clout as big businesses through new state-based affordable insurance markets, leveling the playing field and lowering costs for millions more small firms. The president’s Small Business Jobs Act lets self-employed workers deduct 100 percent of the cost of their and their families’ health coverage in 2010 to help them weather the recession.

Obama is also helping small businesses gain access to credit. He expanded lending to small businesses, helping those struggling under the burden of a credit crunch created by the Wall Street meltdown.

When the president took office, small business lending had plummeted, with the number of loans dropping by nearly half in just the last quarter of 2008. He helped jump start business growth and new hiring, and since January 2009 the Small Business Administration has supported nearly $80 billion in loans to more than 150,000 small businesses. Last year was a record year for SBA 7(a) and 504 program lending.

“As a small-business owner, access to capital is excruciatingly difficult; it shouldn’t be this way. We need funds to help grow our businesses because when our businesses grow so do our local economies,” says Jack Bingham, owner of Seacoast Energy Alternatives in Dover, N.H. Bingham plans on attending the Oct. 1st lunch-time event in Portsmouth.

To ensure that small businesses have access to the loans they need, the Small Business Jobs Act provided loan guarantees and reduced fees, leading to more than $12 billion in small business lending.

President Obama is also trying to reduce small businesses’ tax burden, cutting taxes for small business owners 18 times, and signing into law $200 billion in tax relief and incentives that benefited American businesses over the last three years to encourage them to create jobs and invest in growth.

“Mitt Romney has strongly suggested that the 30 percent tax credit for renewables would be history under his administration; Obama has pledged to support it,” reminds Bingham. “This is the kind of forward-thinking tax help that moves our economy forward.”

The president’s Small Business Jobs Act made 4.5 million small businesses eligible for a larger tax break on new investments in equipment and machinery. He wants to eliminate capital gains taxes for key small-business investments, and double the amount of start-up expenses that entrepreneurs can deduct. As part of his to-do list, he is calling on Congress to give small businesses a 10 percent income tax credit for hiring more workers, and extend 100 percent expensing for new
investments in 2012 for all businesses.

As part of the president’s framework for corporate tax reform, he has proposed allowing small businesses to expense up to $1 million in investments while simplifying the tax code for small businesses. And, as part of the Recovery Act’s efforts to boost all segments of our economy, one-third of all federal contracting dollars went to small businesses.

Obama Administration goals

President Obama hopes to create 1 million more jobs by 2016 by cutting taxes for companies that invest in the American worker. And he will help give 2 million workers the chance to learn skills at their community college that will lead directly to a job. He has set a new goal of cutting tuition and fee growth in half over the next 10 years, a goal that would save a typical student thousands of dollars a year.

He has signed into law last summer as part of a deal with congressional Republicans, a balanced plan of spending cuts and revenue increases that reduce the deficit by more than $4 trillion over the next decade, including $1 trillion in spending cuts.

“You can choose a future where we reduce our deficit without wrecking our middle class. Independent analysis shows that my plan would cut our deficits by $4 trillion,” Obama said.

President Obama has a goal of cutting imports — which have already fallen to a
20-year low — by a third, or 3.7 million barrels a day by 2025. First, he will encourage producing American energy, such as natural gas, which can support more than 600,000 jobs by 2020. Second, he finalized historic fuel economy standards last summer, which will nearly double vehicles’ mileage to 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025, creating 500,000 new jobs, including more than 40,000 new auto industry jobs. Families will save more than $8,000 at the pump over the life of new vehicles. And we’ll be breathing cleaner air.

“These are the kinds of discussions we hope to have at this forum at the Green Alliance on October 1st,” says GA owner Sarah Brown. “We encourage all business owners and N.H. citizens to attend and offer them a chance to ask questions and learn about how presidential politics and policies can affect our local economies in ways that really matter.”

To learn more about the Green Alliance, or the Oct. 1st Small Businesses for Obama event, go to www.greenalliance.biz