White House Steps Up Pressure for Small Business Bill

The White House Tuesday tried to turn up the pressure on Senate Republicans who they say are blocking a $42 billion bill to help small businesses, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Senators plan to leave Washington at week’s end for their August recess, and it appears increasingly unlikely that they can resolve an impasse on the bill before then.

David Axelrod, senior adviser to President Barack Obama, and Gene Sperling, counselor to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, summoned reporters to the White House Roosevelt Room to blame Republicans for obstructionism on the bill.

Most of its provisions are bipartisan, they argued, yet GOP leaders insist on blocking it. “As we’ve seen on many other issues, there’s enormous pressure from the leadership to take partisan positions, to slow down the process, to block progress on some of these initiatives,” Axelrod said.

Small business is a cause that both Democrats and Republicans claim to embrace, and each party blames the other for not allowing the bill to go forward.

The legislation would create a new $30 billion lending fund, which would go to community banks, which would in turn make loans to small firms.

It also includes such provisions as letting investors avoid capital gains taxes on certain small business stocks. It would also increase the limits on a variety Small Business Administration loans, and it would provide $1.5 billion in grants to small business loan programs run by the states.

Republicans complain that they were not allowed to offer any amendments, that Democrats included unrelated spending in the bill, and that the lending fund is another example of unwarranted federal intrusion into the private sector.

They also say it would have been easy to reach a deal and pass the bill if Democrats really wanted to. “You can manufacture a legislative impasse, but the American people know what’s going on here,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) said recently.

The bill has won the Democrats unusual allies, including the National Federation of Independent Businesses, which represents small businesses.

“The fact that the NFIB specifically praised the small business lending fund does make it more difficult for those who’d like to try to demagogue or mischaracterize it,” Sperling said.

Axelrod warned of political consequences for lawmakers who oppose the bill.

“Those who stand in the way of a vote on this are going to have to go home and face the small business people in their states and explain why they held up progress on this, when people are out there starving for capital and the resources they need,” he said.