The House passed the bill today, now it goes to Obama to sign:
Democrats controlling Congress are sending President Barack Obama a long-delayed bill to help struggling small businesses with easier credit and give them other incentives to expand and to hire new workers. More at AP
Obama's statement:
The small business jobs bill passed today will help provide loans and cut taxes for millions of small business owners without adding a dime to our nation’s deficit. After months of partisan obstruction and needless delay, I’m grateful that Democrats and a few Republicans came together to support this common-sense plan to put Americans back to work. I look forward to signing the bill on Monday.
GDP growth progress but jobs need to grow, Obama said:
The economy is growing again, thanks to the stimulus. To see what that growth looks like, check this out.
The U.S. economy, propelled by stimulus-driven gains in consumer spending and home building, grew at a 3.5 percent pace from July through September, the first expansion in more than a year. Bloomberg
Kathleen Stephansen, chief economist at Aladdin Capital Management LLC, warns that the growth is mostly due to the stimulus. People still aren't spending and there hasn't been any increases in wages. Amen. That means jobs will take longer to recover. Obama speaking in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building:
"I am gratified that our economy grew in the third quarter of this year. We've come a long way since the first three months of 2009, when our economy shrunk by an alarming 6.4 percent. In fact, the 3.5 percent growth in the third quarter is the largest three-month gain we have seen in two years. This is obviously welcome news and an affirmation that this recession is abating and the steps we’ve taken have made a difference," he said. "But I also know that we've got a long way to go to fully restore our economy, and recover from what has been the longest and deepest downturn since the Great Depression." In opening remarks to the group - which included members of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce - the president acknowledged Karen Mills, the administrator of the Small Business Administration, and Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, who was running late and Obama said would arrive "in a hot second." Politico
Update: Obama reaffirms his commitment to get small businesses the financing they need. He raised caps on small business loans and said Timothy Geithner and Karen Mills, SBA administrator, will confer with others on how to get more credit flowing to small businesses.
Obama will speak today at 1:45 pm eastern from Metropolitan Archives, a small business in Maryland. It's likely to be live streamed at cnn.com. A live audio stream will be available at whitehouse.gov/live. I'll post video when it's up. Also today, Obama will interview with NBC's Savannah Guthrie and he'll travel to New Jersey to speak at a rally for Jon Corzine at 6 pm:
President Obama will visit a Maryland business on Wednesday afternoon to announce initiatives to encourage lending to small businesses. According to an administration official, the proposal will increase the caps for existing Small Business Administration loans and give smaller banks better access to funds from the Troubled Assets Relief Program.
An industry official involved in S.B.A. lending said the White House would propose raising the cap on the agency’s flagship 7(a) loan from $2 million to $5 million. But other programs are likely to see increases, too, including the 504 program.
The event will take place at Metropolitan Archives, a records storage company in Landover, northeast of Washington, that financed its warehouse in part with a $2 million loan guarantee under the 504 program, according to Chris Crawford, president of the National Association of Development Companies, which lobbies for nonprofit 504 lenders. NYT
In yet another interview on healthcare, Obama says he now thinks mandated health insurance (requiring everyone to have health insurance) is a better idea. Obama also says he never nominated Sanjay Gupta.
Here's a new CBS interview. Obama reiterates his change of mind on mandated health insurance but says there needs to be a hardship exception, at least at the start.
Obama reviews what's available for small business from SBA and the recovery act. The recovery plan reduces the capital gains tax for investments in startups to zero. He announced a new SBA loan program, America's Recovery Capital, to help businesses pay off non SBA debts. The loans will be available June 15.
