Chairman Williams Gavels in Committee on Small Business Markup (September 14, 2023)

Summary

This September 14, 2023 press release says the House Committee on Small Business is conducting a full committee markup on five bills, and it reproduces Chairman Roger Williams' opening statement as prepared for delivery. The statement says the bills address the needs of small businesses, including holding accountable criminals who took advantage of small business lending programs during the pandemic and making it easier to report COVID fraud. It says Williams was hoping the committee would mark up a bill to put the guardrails back on the S-B-A's 7(a) lending program. The statement closes by yielding to the Ranking Member.

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Opening Statements

Chairman Williams Gavels in Committee on Small Business Markup

September 14, 2023

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, the House Committee on Small Business is holding a full committee markup on five bills.

Chairman Roger Williams’ opening statement as prepared for delivery:

Good morning, and welcome to today’s markup where we’ll be discussing five bills that address the various needs of our nation’s small businesses.

To put it lightly, small businesses across the country have faced undeserved hardship for quite some time now thanks to the Biden Administration’s misguided economic policies.

It’s the responsibility of this Committee to be Main Street’s voice in Congress, and that’s exactly what we’re here to do today. Small businesses are the engines of our economy, and we need to produce policies that will help them – not regulate them into oblivion like this Administration is doing.

All the bills before us today have been a result of our past hearings and oversight efforts coming from this Committee. I am proud that we are finding solutions to hold the criminals accountable who took advantage of small business lending programs during the pandemic and making it easier for any American to report COVID fraud. While our work is far from over, it is good to see us bring new ideas to the table that can help Main Street America.

Additionally, I am grateful to see my colleagues bring forward bills that address the unique challenges faced by our rural entrepreneurs. For many of us here on the Committee, we continually hear from our constituents that they didn’t even know resources were available to the rural small business community.

While I am glad to see these bills being marked up today, I was hoping we would be marking-up a bill to put the guardrails back on the S-B-A’s 7(a) lending program. With that being said, both our staffs have been working diligently through this complicated issue, and I am hopeful that we will be able to come to an agreement soon that guarantees the longevity of the 7(a) program, safeguards the taxpayer from being exposed to unnecessary risk, and ensures the S-B-A remains the lender of last resort so it will not compete with the private sector.

In closing, thank you to our members for bringing these bills up. They represent the work we do as a Committee on behalf of our nation’s entrepreneurs and innovators. I’d also like to thank the Ranking Member and her staff for working with us to produce bipartisan solutions for Main Street.

With that, I look forward to today’s markup, and I yield to the distinguished Ranking Member from New York, Ms. Velasquez.

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