In a recent post on the Little Chicago Review comes this response from Sen Enzi (R) after a Forum regarding Obama’s Small Business Plan.

“The only way to truly stimulate the economy is to do it from the bottom up. Small businesses are the backbone of this country, not Wall Street or banks. If we focus on the small businesses we can pull ourselves out of this economic slump,” said Enzi. “President Obama said all the right things, now we’ll see if he does the right things to help out where it counts. This forum was positive and I look forward to working in the Senate to pass reforms that protect the small businesses in this country without bailing them out.”

The White House forum was attended by Senator Enzi, legislators on the House and Senate Small Business Committees, small businessmen from around the country, community bankers, Treasury Secretary Geithner, National Economic Council Director Larry Summers and Small Business Administration-nominee Karen Gordon Mills.

President Obama released his plan to help small businesses by raising the guarantee on loans to 90 percent (up from 85 percent), lowering the Small Business Administration fees for those loans, provide tax relief and incentives, and eliminate the capital gains tax for investment in small businesses.

President Obama’s plan also calls for the Treasury to use $15 billion of previously allocated Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) funding to purchase small business loans currently held by community banks that aren’t able to sell them in a secondary market.

That is designed to free up capital for banks to administer more small business loans. The plan also requires the 11 major banks that were bailed out with taxpayer money to report the percentage of their loans to small businesses each month.

“I am encouraged that President Obama’s small business plan uses money already in the system and does not require new spending. None of this help should be a hand out, it should be an opportunity to succeed. I hope his Administration will take this same approach when they work with Congress on the Administration’s proposed budget. There are mechanisms in the President’s budget that hinder, not help, small businesses. Those mechanisms would negate the progress outlined today. As we move forward on the budget I look forward to evening out those discrepancies,” said Enzi.

Enzi noted that small business owners are taxed differently because they are required to list their business income as part of their personal income even though all most all of it goes back into the business and they don’t have access to it. Because of this tax difference many small business owners would be subject to the higher taxes proposed by the Administration for those earning more than $250,000 a year. Western Ideas