President Obama met with small business owners in Washington, D.C. Monday and gave remarks about his To-Do List for Congress that includes steps — like tax breaks — lawmakers could take to help small businesses. He gave his remarks from Taylor Gourmet, one of the small businesses whose owners were present at the rounttable, and where the president got a hoagie for lunch.
From his remarks:
One of the items on that “To-Do” list would be to provide tax breaks for companies like these that are hiring new employees or raising the wages and salaries of their existing employees. Either way, what that does is it gives them an incentive as their expanding to say, maybe we hire an extra two people. Maybe we hire an extra three people. Maybe we hire an extra 10 people.
…
And it’s the same reason why all the other items on the “To-Do” list could really make a difference. For example, some of these small businesses may be interested in hiring a veteran, and we’ve already done a lot of work on veterans hiring. A lot of the items on the “To-Do” list is a Veterans Job Corps that could potentially put some veterans who are coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan to work rebuilding America.
So my message to Congress — and I’m going to have a chance to see the congressional leadership when I get back to the White House — I’m going to offer them some hoagies while they’re there — is let’s go ahead and act to help build and sustain momentum for our economy. There will be more than enough time for us to campaign and politick, but let’s make sure that we don’t lose steam at a time when a lot of folks like these are feeling pretty optimistic and are ready to go.
