On the recordSeptember 15, 2010
Madam President, we have been debating for weeks now a needed solution to our economic recovery in the United States. We have seen some progress, but it is a long and difficult journey for American families. The depth of the crisis that materialized in the last few years of the Bush administration can't be overcome in just 18 months, although I believe we are headed in the right direction. The legislation we are considering will help us in that journey to recovery. We have seen, in fact, over the last several months, an increase in private sector jobs. We didn't see that in the last several years of the Bush administration. When President Obama took office, we were losing 750,000 jobs a month and we had 22 straight months of job losses. Now we need to turn that dynamic around by creating private sector jobs, but we have to do much more. The great engine of private job creation is small business in America. These provisions are aimed to aid small businesses throughout the country. Small business is an engine of growth. It is the place where people will, I think, find employment as we go forward. Our small business community has been hit very hard by the economic crisis, the financial crisis, and the collapse of the credit bubble. Small businesses have lost more than 6 million jobs since December 2007, and we have to start restoring those jobs.…





