Paul Ryan: “today we are voting on H.R. 4923, the Community Renewal and New Markets Act, which includes a provision to create…”

“today we are voting on H.R. 4923, the Community Renewal and New Markets Act, which includes a provision to create several very large investment companies targeted toward the inner cities and rural communities. The American Private Investment Companies' (APIC) proposed goal of bringing large-scale businesses to economically distressed communities is a laudable and important goal. However, the APIC proposed under the Community Renewal and New Markets Act accepts the various impediments to investing in the inner city and rural communities and simply offers businesses a subsidy for risky investment. Further, the legislation duplicates several existing programs, including Small Business Investment Companies (SBICs) which are also expanded under this bill. The proposal has not been adequately scored to take government loan guarantee risk into consideration, and is to be administered by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), which is inadequately prepared for the responsibility. A lack of capital is not keeping businesses from investing in these areas, especially not the large-scale, established businesses that the APIC program would target--the problem is the high cost of doing business.”