President's Budget Plan Includes Key Small Business Proposals

The president's 2016 budget plan includes key provisions small businesses support and have long been asking for, such as closing tax loopholes that benefit large corporations, increasing consumer demand by strengthening the middle class, supporting better workforce training, and creating infrastructure initiatives that can provide small businesses with economic opportunities and encourage job growth.

Small Business Majority's scientific opinion polling shows America's primary job creators support many of the proposals in the president's budget, including:

• Closing corporate tax loopholes that put small businesses at a disadvantage, and cutting the top corporate tax rates. Small Business Majority's opinion polling found 75 percent of entrepreneurs believe their small business is harmed when big corporations use loopholes to avoid taxes, and 90 percent believe big corporations use loopholes to avoid taxes that small businesses have to pay.
• Reducing the deficit in a balanced way and ending sequestration cuts that harm small businesses and the economy. Polling shows small businesses want a long-term solution to our budget issues, and believe ending sequestration cuts would give them the certainty they need to plan for the future.
• Supporting better workforce training and addressing the job skills gap by helping more Americans afford to go to college and receive technical training. By helping more Americans gain the education and skills they need to succeed, we will foster better workforces, which will bolster small employers and our economy as a whole.
• Boosting investments in manufacturing, infrastructure and innovation. Our polling found nearly seven in 10 small employers support investing in infrastructure projects that would create jobs while repairing our aging roads and bridges.
• Reducing the deficit by passing comprehensive immigration reform, something small business owners support. Small business owners recognize our current immigration system is broken and believe fixing it will help them foster a better workforce and stronger economies. Immigration reform will reduce the deficit by nearly one trillion over two decades, boost GDP growth, increase the size of the workforce and raise wages for both U.S.-born and immigration workers.
• Expanding access to retirement savings programs to small business owners and their employees. Our opinion polling found small business owners struggle to offer retirement savings programs, but want to offer this benefit to their employees because it helps them attract and retain talent and has a positive impact on employee attitude and performance.

Our economy is recovering, but many small business owners are still struggling to grow and thrive. They need a pragmatic blueprint that provides certainty and opportunities for the future. We hope lawmakers will put their partisan differences aside and agree on a budget for 2016 that includes smart, small business-friendly policies that help our job creators do what they do best: put America to work.