On the recordJune 23, 2011
as former Chair and now Ranking Member of the Senate Small Business Committee, it is my privilege and my responsibility today to stand up for small businesses across America that are being unfairly hurt by a punitive and unnecessary tax. The so- called ``tanning tax'' was included at the eleventh hour as part of last year's health care legislative maneuvering, and I am pleased to offer this legislation to repeal the tanning tax. The tanning tax was added to the health care bill without any analysis of how it would affect this industry comprised primarily of small businesses, 75 percent of whose employees and customers are women. I cannot reiterate enough that small businesses are the primary job creators in this country, responsible for more than two-thirds of all new jobs created. At a time when a staggering and seemingly intractable unemployment rate of over 9 percent has become the norm, when some 22 million Americans are unemployed or underemployed, when we are experiencing the longest period of long-term unemployment in American history since data collection started in 1948, surpassing even the 1982 double-dip recession for the length of unemployment, when the percentage of population that is employed has declined to 58.4 percent, the lowest level in nearly 30 years, how could anyone think that shuttering or slowing the growth of small businesses is a good idea?…
