SBA head urges passage of small business bill

The Small Business Administration turned $680 million into nearly $30 billion in loans that helped save or create hundreds of thousands of jobs. 

SBA Administrator Karen Mills is urging passage of a small business bill stalled in the Senate arguing that additional funds provided by the 2009 economic stimulus provided about 70,000 loans, she said Friday in a blog post on the White House's website. 

Mills said she was surprised to hear recent comments made by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) that the pending small business legislation is “a little itty-bitty small business bill that no one thinks will have much of an impact on the economy.”

The SBA ran out of funding in May, and the small business legislation would extend the loans for "more than 1,000 small businesses on a stand-by list waiting for the bill to pass."

"That’s more than $500 million in small business loans," she said in the post. 

"Not only will the bill immediately help thousands of small business owners get access to capital, but it will also raise the limit on SBA loans from $2 million to $5 million, helping high-growth small firms who are ready to expand, franchises who want to open a new location, and exporters who need to ramp up to meet a big order from abroad," she wrote. 

The bill includes provisions that provide $12 billion in tax cuts for small businesses, accelerate depreciation, eliminate capital gains on small business investments and double the deduction for start-ups, she wrote. 

"This is a strong bill. It has broad support. It will give taxpayers a big bang for their buck," she wrote. "And, it will benefit thousands of entrepreneurs and small business owners across the country, including the more than 1,000 who are right now waiting to get an SBA Recovery loan."