John Cornyn: “I appreciate the numerous ways in which many of our colleagues have worked to improve this bill; significantly, the…”

“I appreciate the numerous ways in which many of our colleagues have worked to improve this bill; significantly, the bipartisan work of the Finance Committee, Senators Grassley and Baucus, certainly the good work of the minority manager of the bill, Senator Enzi, and numerous others to try to improve it, to try to ameliorate some of the unintended consequences of government-mandated wages. I support the small business package which is part of what we are attempting to do to provide a better bill, one that rounds out the provisions of the bill and one that actually produces intended effects, which are not to hurt small businesses, the primary engine of our economy. The fact is, small businesses employ about 70 percent of the workers in America today. Why would this body do anything that would actually put more people out of work? Well, the provisions of the legislation that came out of the Finance Committee, as modest as they are, represent a real attempt to try to round out and improve the bill in order to reduce the unintended impact, which would be to put people out of work, and to provide some regulatory and tax relief for small businesses, the employers that employ 70 percent of the people in the American workforce. Small business expensing allows mom-and-pop shops and entrepreneurs to reinvest in their businesses and grow and, in so growing, hire more people and create jobs, not just in my State of Texas but across the country.”