Republican Freshmen on Job Creation

Floor Speech

Mr. DUFFY. I commend the gentlemen from Arkansas and from New York for the work you've been doing in your own districts, reaching out to job creators, listening to them about what they need to make sure they can expand their businesses and grow their businesses. I've been doing the same. Over the last couple of weeks I've done a number of different events.

I did a jobs fair in central Wisconsin; that's where my district is, central Wisconsin up to northwestern Wisconsin. We had 100 employers, and we had 1,200 job seekers come through that jobs fair. And if you looked out at the 100 folks who were there looking to hire, you didn't see too many people from the government looking to hire because the real job growth in America is in the private sector. And if you looked out over that arena of employers, they're not big businesses, they're small businesses. They have anywhere from 10 employees, some of them were as big as 100, 120 employees, but all characterized and categorized as small businesses.

I thought it was important to note that there are people hiring; but if you look at the quality and the quantity of people who need work in central Wisconsin, there is a disparity between the number of jobs that are available and the number of people who want to support their families with hard work and hard labor and a good paycheck. And so the work is not done. We have to continue pressing on to make sure that we have the environment for job growth.

As the President says, We cannot wait, and I don't know what he's referring to when he says ``we cannot wait.'' My reference to we cannot wait is we cannot wait, as the Speaker said, for the Senate to start passing our bills that are going to put Americans back to work.

I did a forest policy conference. In my area, we have a large forest product industry. And the Chief of the Forest Service was kind enough to come to my district, a well-spoken, very knowledgeable individual who's spent a lot of time in the Forest Service. Rangers were there, and it was a great conversation with a lot of our loggers.

But in the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest, we have 1.5 million acres, great resource in central and northern Wisconsin.

Let me tell you a story of one of the forest products individuals that came to that conference. He's an individual that owns Action Floors. They're from Mercer, Wisconsin. Now, Mercer is not, by far, the biggest community in Wisconsin. It's a small town that relies on the forest products industry and premier gym floors they make at Action Floors in Mercer, Wisconsin.

But do you think they get the wood from the 1.5 million acres in the Nicolet and Chequamegon Forest? No. Over 50 percent of the wood they use to make those floors is imported from Canada because they can't access timber in central Wisconsin. That's a shame.

Now, listen. I live in Wisconsin because I believe that we should have clean water and a clean environment. I live there because I like the outdoors. I like to use it. I want my kids to experience it. But managing forests is critical to preserving it. It's the first green industry. It's renewable. It grows back if it's managed well.

And here we have folks in central Wisconsin that can't access it. Those are real jobs. Those are real families that are impacted by the decisions that are made here in Washington, D.C. But timber being imported from Canada? Give me a break.

We had a field hearing just yesterday, Financial Services, the subcommittee was Financial Institutions. And we had some small small banks and some medium small banks, and we had small credit unions, medium-sized credit unions all in there talking about the rules and regulations that are coming from Dodd-Frank.

And if you think that these credit unions and these small banks are big Wall Street banks, I would encourage you to come to central Wisconsin. They're the furthest from a big Wall Street bank. These are people who have grown up in these communities that are helping get capital out of the bank into the hands of job creators and to homeowners, people who want to buy a car. And they are burdened by regulations and mandates and rules. They can't comply with them.

At some point, banking needs to be regulated--we all would agree with that--but let's have smart regulation. Let's make sure the capital can get out the door to those small businesses that want to expand or grow.

There's some interesting information that I think just came out from the NFIB; and if you look at the end of the last recession, 2001, to the beginning of this new recession in 2007, businesses that have fewer than 500 employees, they have created 7 million new jobs during that time frame. And 60 percent of those businesses, they'd only been in existence for 5 years. So these are new start-ups, small, that are the engine of job growth in America. Now, on the other hand, we had employers or businesses that had 500 employees or more. Those businesses had cut 1 million jobs. And the point here is job growth is coming from small businesses.

But today, we are at a 16-year low for start-ups. Businesses aren't growing. Businesses aren't beginning in this new environment. And I think it goes to what you gentlemen were just talking about. I think there's three things. One, it's access to capital. They don't have the ability to go to the bank and get a loan. There are a lot of factors that used to be considered when making a loan in small-town America: character and cash flow and a number of considerations. What's happening today with our banks is they're just looking at the file; so when the regulators come, their file looks clean, and they can't take all the factors they used to take into consideration.

I think it's important to note that the banks and the credit unions in my district, they weren't part of the financial crisis. They had nothing to do with it. They were implementing sound banking principles in their communities that were launching small businesses that were the engine of growth in our communities. But today, they can't do that, and so we don't see that job growth take place.

They also talk about regulations, which I think you two did a wonderful job. Just to name a few, remember the 1099 bill? In ObamaCare, in PPACA, there's a 1099 piece of legislation where, if you had a transaction that was over $600, you had to send the other individual or business a 1099. The workload, the paperwork that that puts onto a small business is unconscionable. They can't focus on doing the work of their business. They're focused on doing the work of the IRS. What we're saying here is we need reasonable, commonsense regulations that are going to help our small businesses expand and grow.

And another thing they talk about is uncertainty, and this all feeds into each other. But in here is taxes. It's health care. It's regulations.

Before I yield back, I'm going to tell you one story, and this is a story from central Wisconsin. It's an individual that I went to see. He's a small manufacturer. He has about 100, 110 people who work for him. As I was sitting in his office, he was saying, Listen, I've got a great idea. I'm going to grow my business. It's going to cost me $1 million to make this investment. I've been in business for a long time, and I know this idea that I have is going to work. If I make this $1 million dollar investment, I'm going to create 10 to 15 new jobs in my community. But guess what? I'm 62 years old. I look at all the uncertainty. I look at ObamaCare. I look at taxes. I look at new regulations, look at new banking regulations. He said, With all of that uncertainty in the marketplace, I'm not going to make that investment. I'm 62.

Who got hurt?

This guy has enough money. He's made enough money

in the course of running his business. It doesn't hurt him because he didn't make that investment, but it hurts 15 families in that community that don't have a good-paying job. Fifteen families don't have work because he didn't take that risk, make that investment.

We have to make sure that people are encouraged to take risk, to invest and expand and grow and compete. And if they do that, we're going to see great growth in this country.

But I believe we're at a crossroads. If we don't go down the path of free markets and free enterprise, American capitalism, a system that has worked since our founding, that has created incomparable wealth in this country, I think we're going to go down a different path, and that path does not lead to prosperity. It doesn't lead to opportunity. It doesn't lead to job growth. It leads to something far less than that.

I think, in this country, we want to fight to make sure we stay on a path of prosperity and opportunity so we can pass that off to the next generation. That's worth the fight. I'm willing to fight for those principles.

In this House, we argue, and I think the American people would say probably too much. But I know there's friends on the other side of the aisle that would agree with this, that agree that we have to come together to find solutions that are going to help the private, small sector grow and put our hardworking people back to work.

So I appreciate the hour that the gentleman from Arkansas has reserved, and I appreciate the conversation and the focus that my colleagues here in the freshman class have put on job growth, not only for their own districts but for the country as a whole. And with this effort and with some cooperation, hopefully, from the White House, we're going to be able to turn this economy around, which is not us. It's actually policy that we turn over to the private sector for that job growth.

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