Obama wants small-business bill this year

President Barack Obama, sitting next to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, center, and Transportation Secretary Raymond LaHood, right, speaks during a cabinet meeting in the Cabinet Room of the White House in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2012. / AP Photo/Susan Walsh

Seeking cooperation in a polarized climate, President Barack Obama called on Congress Tuesday to act quickly on bipartisan measures that would extend tax breaks for small businesses and help startup companies raise money. He said he would sign the legislation "right away."

Obama plans to include a series of business measures that have been percolating in Congress in his 2013 budget proposal later this month to flesh out a year-old initiative to give entrepreneurs incentives to expand their businesses or start new ones.

Obama made his remarks during a Cabinet meeting at the White House. He noted that for the first time, the head of the Small Business Administration, Karen Mills, was participating as a full member of the Cabinet.

"It is a symbol of how important it is for us to spur entrepreneurship, to help startups, to move aggressively so that we can assure more companies that create the most jobs in our economy are getting a leg up from various programs that we have in our government," Obama said.

The White House legislative agenda for small businesses includes permanently eliminating tax rates on capital gains for investments in small businesses and a one-year extension on the ability of all businesses to immediately deduct all of the costs of equipment and software purchases.

The Obama administration also is seeking a new 10 percent tax credit for small businesses that add jobs or increase wages in 2012. In addition, the legislation would make it easier for new startup companies to raise money and to go public. It also would expand a government small business investment program from $3 billion to $4 billion.

"The president has made small businesses and particularly startups a key aspect of his economic growth agenda because he understands how much the newest and fastest-growing small businesses drive job growth in our economy," said Gene Sperling, director of the White House National Economic Council.

Obama said the Department of Homeland Security also is seeking ways to change the visa process to attract foreign-born entrepreneurs and high-skilled immigrants to invest in the United States or start new businesses.

The measures are modest by comparison to Obama's 2009 economic stimulus or to last year's jobs bill. But they borrow from past Obama initiatives and from bipartisan legislation that has either already passed in the House or is being proposed in the Senate.

Obama's package includes proposals offered in the Senate by Democrat Chris Coons of Delaware and Republican Marco Rubio of Florida, and another plan by Republican Jerry Moran of Kansas and Democrat Mark Warner of Virginia.

White House officials would not disclose the total cost of the president's package, but Sperling said it would be more than covered by proposals to reduce tax expenditures and by closed loopholes the administration will call for in its 2013 budget.

With the presidential election set to become the main political preoccupation of 2012, the White House initiative is designed to take advantage of cooperative attempts by Republicans and Democrats to find modest remedies to spur the economy. Most of those efforts have been overshadowed by congressional bickering, the Republican presidential primary and Obama's growing attention to his re-election.

The proposals come a year after the administration launched a consolidated effort to spur new startup businesses with a high-profile White House event featuring scores of entrepreneurs, some of whom offered testimonials to the job creation possibilities that new businesses can bring to the economy.

Besides the tax breaks, a central element of the Obama package is to assist new entrepreneurs by making it easier for them to raise money, reducing taxes on their startup expenses and removing securities barriers for new companies that have gone public.

"Our small business agenda has a specific focus on removing the barriers that have for too long blocked startups and entrepreneurs from getting the financing they need to accelerate their growth and hiring," Sperling said.

One of the Obama provisions would increase the amount of money that can be raised through small public offerings that don't require companies to undergo an extensive Securities and Exchange Commission registration process. The limit for such "mini public offerings" would increase from $5 million a year to $50 million. The House passed similar legislation last year.

[nonpolitico]

Tax on products not made in USA?
How about a TV?
Don`t make many of those in USA now.
How about sweatshirts. (Checked the label on yours lately)?
How about the DD orders sent abroad to cheapen price, resulting in ChiComs copying our hi tech equipment?
Now THAT does need bringing home!

I personally think that the refusal of Obama to appear in a Georgia State Court to answer questions about eligibility is more important than exports.
If the occupant of the WH is not eligible but has scammed his way in, this shows high level Party and Administration collusion.I know politicians normally lie to the people, but a President who maybe is not a US citizen, with Foreign parents????
Come on. We gotta have the facts!
Then maybe the US can begin again and once again show the world what REAL democracy is about!
Also the camps being built to house the "suspected terrorists" without charge or judicial hearings/evidence?
USA needs a new president.
USA needs rich people to invest their money in enterprises to allow citizens who are poorer to have JOBS instead of Welfare.
Also the new guy could scrap the Patriot Act, scrap Obamacare, and ALL the Federal Jobsworths Programs founded since 2005!
But first, How about we STOP printing money and get the country living within its means!!
After all if citizens can do this why cannot Washington copy this good habit?

[cheeksforus]

Tax on products made outside the US, all products that would force companies to make the stuff here. They did it after world war 2 and it worked. Number 2 term limits, get the crooks out of DC. Stop the low tax rates on income from investments. I understand that tax'es at some in the past have been paid but it a new day folks, hate to be the teller of the common sense but it's a new day every day. Make the speculators take delivery of what ever it is they are speculating on