State of the Union Address Underscores Key Small Business Issues

The president's State of the Union speech touched on many of small business owners' key concerns, particularly increasing consumer demand by strengthening the middle class, closing corporate tax loopholes and ensuring open and fair Internet access for all.

We're pleased the president highlighted the importance of small businesses and the middle class—the engine of small business prosperity. Small business job creation significantly outperformed that of big businesses in 2014, and they employ nearly half the private sector workforce. Creating smart policies that support our nation's job creators and their middle-class customer base is the most common sense way to ensure our economy continues down a pathway to prosperity.

While we would have liked to see some more small business-friendly proposals, including ones that address access to capital, a healthcare marketplace that works and policies that create greater demand for their goods and services, many of the plans the president outlined are ones small business owners support, 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.
• Expanding broadband in rural areas and ensuring a fair and open Internet, which will help drive business growth, entrepreneurship and job creation. Small Business Majority's polling found 59 percent of small businesses support creating a nationwide wireless network and expanding access to high-speed wireless services.
• Calling on Congress to work together to find solutions to reform the immigration system, 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.

While the president's speech tonight highlighted many of the issues small employers see as vital to our economic success, we need lawmakers to start acting on policies that level the playing field for small firms and put them in a position to thrive. By taking action on smart policies like these, lawmakers can help drive our nation's growth, job creation and competitiveness.