By Joseph Picard: Subscribe to Joseph's RSS feed
August 20, 2010 12:40 PM EDT
President Obama reacted to the grim news on job loss by calling on Congress to pass the Small Business Jobs Bill.
"In the final few months of last year, small businesses with fewer than 50 employees accounted for more than 60 percent of the job losses in America," Obama said. "These are the businesses that usually create most of the jobs in this country."
The president said that" if we want this economy to create more jobs more quickly, we need to help them."
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on Thursday that jobless claims for the week ended August 15 jumped to 500,000, an increase from 12,000 from the previous week. This is the first weekly jobless claims number at or above 500,000 since the week ended November 14h, 2009.
The Labor Department reports have shown lower-than-expected private payroll gains over the past several months. The national unemployment rate is creeping towards 10 percent.
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Obama said that passing the Small Business Jobs Bill is the tonic the economy needs.
"It would allow small business owners to write off more expenses," the President said. "And it would make it easier for community banks to do more lending to small businesses, while allowing small firms to take out larger SBA loans with fewer fees, which countless entrepreneurs have told me would make a big difference in their companies."
The legislation passed the House in June, but failed to get the three-fifths majority needed to bring the bill to the floor in the senate in late July. The Republican minority's 41 votes were sufficient to block it.
"A partisan minority in the Senate so far has refused to allow this jobs bill to come up for a vote," Obama said.
The president noted that much of the bill was authored by Republican senators and has the backing of groups including the national Chamber of Commerce and the National Federation of Independent Businesses.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said, at the time of the Senate vote, that there were ways the bill could have passed with bipartisan support but Democratic amendments prevented that.
"They've been adding either controversial or completely unrelated matters to this bill," McConnell said.
He said Democrats were attempting to add $10 billion for teachers and $16 billion for Medicaid to the bill, and that the bill has over a billion dollars earmarked for agriculture.
Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-LA, countered that farms were small businesses.
The Democrats passed the emergency aid to teachers and Medicaid in a separate bill.
The President expects the Senate to try again on the Small Business Jobs Bill in September.
" When Congress reconvenes, this jobs bill will be the first business out of the gate," he said. "And the Senate Republican leadership needs to stop its efforts to block it. Let's put aside the partisanship for awhile and work together for small businesses, for employees, and the communities that depend on them across this great country."
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