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Clinton to announce plan to “jumpstart” small businesses

NEW YORK -- Hillary Clinton will roll out a new plan to “jumpstart” small businesses on a nationwide conference call with business owners from across the country on Tuesday afternoon, according to a campaign official.

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The new plan, previewed by the official, aims to streamline the process of starting and running a business in the United States, starting at the very beginning. Under Clinton’s plan, the federal government would provide incentives for state and local agencies that make it “faster and cheaper” to secure the licenses necessary to start a business. 

Clinton’s plan also looks for new ways to expand small business owners’ access to capital, through community banks, credit unions and online lending platforms. For business owners who have already set up shop, Clinton would create a new standard tax deduction. 

“This proposal will vastly simplify filing for small businesses and entrepreneurs,” reads a fact sheet distributed by Clinton’s campaign. “Rather than having to track and file forms documenting their overhead costs—potentially including transportation, computer and phone use, maintaining an office, and more—a small business would be offered the option of taking a single, simple deduction.”

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According to the fact sheet, small business owners and experts would be collaborating with the Treasury Department to design the deduction, and businesses would also have the option to track and deduct expenses individually instead. In addition, Clinton would direct agency heads to “overhaul the entire small business web experience, making it more user-friendly, helpful, and convenient.”

Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine, Clinton’s running mate, is set to meet with small business owners in the Denver area on Tuesday to talk about the new proposals. Both Kaine and Clinton had parents who ran their own businesses --  Clinton has made the story of her father, Hugh Rodham, a central part of her pitch to voters as she travels through battleground states. He owned a small drapery business in suburban Chicago, and Clinton often recalls pitching in to help as a girl. And Kaine brought his father, Al Kaine, out onto the campaign trail Monday to talk with ironworkers -- the elder Kaine owned a union-organized ironworking and welding shop in Missouri.

The final component of Clinton’s plan promises to prevent large companies from preying on small businesses and “give small businesses recourse to take on predatory behavior.” It’s a shot at her opponent, Donald Trump, who Clinton regularly casts as a greedy businessman who stiffs small businesspeople.

“While Donald Trump has made a career of stiffing small businesses -- not because he couldn’t pay them, but because he wouldn’t pay them -- Hillary will fight to support small business at every stage of their lifecycle,” reads the fact sheet. 

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