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President Joe Biden’s small business initiative launched in April 2022 and established dozens of new federal measures to promote new business creation through loans and community support services. Photo by Nathan Howard/UPI
U.S. President Joe Biden visited W.S. Jenks & Son hardware store, a small business that has benefited from a Paycheck Protection Program loan on March 9, 2021. File Photo by Yuri Gripas/UPI
Vice President Kamala Harris participated in a small business roundtable at Fiber Space, a woman-owned boutique yarn and fabric store on March 3, 2021. File Photo by Kevin Dietsch/UPI
May 1 (UPI) — President Joe Biden will welcome dozens of small business owners to the White House Monday to highlight private sector economic growth under his legislative agenda.
The National Small Business Week event kicks off at noon, with Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris will welcome small business award recepients from all 50 states, as well as Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico while releasing a report card on the administration’s support for small businesses, which were helping drive the American economy, the White House said.
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Biden’s small business initiative launched in April 2022 and established dozens of new federal measures to promote new business creation through loans and community support services.
Biden and Harris will also announce new Small Business Administration Guidance awarding a permanent license to nonprofit lenders with a proven track record of higher lending rates to businesses owned by Black and Hispanic people, women and veterans.
The announcement comes as a record 10.5 million applications for new businesses were filed in the United States throughout 2021 and 2022, while small businesses have created 3.1 million jobs since Biden took office, according to the White House.
The Council of Economic Advisers also plans to release data this week that shows small businesses benefitting from Biden’s Investing in America initiative which has spent hundreds of billions of dollars in infrastructure and manufacturing projects nationwide.
During the White House event, Biden is expected to call attention to increased enforcement against corporate tax evasion and to his corporate minimum tax that aims to help small businesses compete with the corporate giants.
The president will also use the event to blast a vote last week by House Republicans to raise the national debt ceiling through spending cuts, which Biden has refused to go along with, saying House Speaker Kevin McCarthy‘s bill would hurt small business growth and lead to 780,000 fewer jobs by the end of 2024, raising the risk of a recession.
McCarthy, R-Calif., said that his job was “done” after passing the bill, adding that Biden “can no longer ignore by not negotiating.”
The White House described the Republican plan as “a reckless attempt to extract concessions as a condition for the United States simply paying the bills it has already incurred,” while Biden has remained adamant that he would be willing to meet with McCarthy, but not to negotiate his stance on the debt limit.
During the event, Biden was likely to continue to skewer Republicans over spending cuts that would serve to slow loan approvals, impede new lender registration, reduce lender oversight, and impede technology updates and customer service for small business applicants, the White House said.
“Speaker McCarthy and House Republicans are holding the economy hostage by refusing to avoid default without slashing billions in funding for vital programs that support small businesses,” the White House said, adding that the GOP plan would slash more than $2 billion from major small business initiatives.
The president will also announce increased small business loans in minority communities and the June launch of a federal licensing program that will allow non-bank lenders to issue competitive small business loans, the White House said.
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