"President Barack Obama is unveiling a $15 billion package to help small businesses."

[ProSense]

Obama plans small-business lending boost

By PHILIP ELLIOTT, Associated Press Writer Philip Elliott, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama is unveiling a $15 billion package to help small businesses.

Speaking to small business owners in the East Room, Obama and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner (GYT'-nur) described their plan to reduce lending fees, ease the tax burden and boost bank liquidity to get credit rolling.

Obama called small businesses the heart of the American economy. He said they have created roughly 70 percent of new jobs in the last decade.

The administration also said the 21 largest banks receiving government money must report monthly on how much lending they do to small businesses.

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Obama seeks to reassure Main Street

President Obama, whose administration has been under fire for doing more for Wall Street than Main Street, plans today to announce more help for small businesses.

Joined by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, Obama will outline a package that includes lower fees for small-business lending and more guarantees for some Small Business Administration loans. It is the latest step by the White House to unfreeze credit so that businesses will expand and either add jobs, or at least not cut them.

Obama and Geithner are also announcing that the Treasury Department will begin directly buying as much as $15 billion in securities backed by SBA loans "to get the credit market moving again, and it will stand ready to purchase new securities to ensure that community banks and credit unions feel confident in extending new loans to local businesses," the White House announced.

"The Obama Administration firmly believes that economic recovery will be driven in large part by America’s small businesses, which have generated about 70 percent of net new jobs annually over the past decade. But as the flow of credit has dried up during this recession, small business owners who were prudent and responsible have been set back by the behavior of others in our financial system who were not," the White House said in a statement.

Geithner urged banks to lend to small businesses and said the federal government will keep closer track.

Senator John F. Kerry of Massachusetts praised the proposals, which his office said incorporated provisions he suggested last year to eliminate fees on SBA loans.

“President Obama’s small business package will provide small businesses with access to capital so they can stay afloat and get back in the business of creating jobs,” Kerry said in a statement. “The faster we get small businesses on track the faster our economy will recover. I’m glad that the provisions I wrote and pressed last year as Chairman of the Small Business Committee are now being enacted to help our struggling small businesses. President Obama gets it when it comes to helping small businesses in the toughest economy in decades.”

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[Life Long Dem]

1. MSM is down playing this

I thought it was great but I guess it's not a story?

This one on CNN always talks home mortgages and lending and come out speaking immediately after Obama spoke. Today she spoke about health care.

[ProSense]

2. Typical for the broadcast media, lots of coverage online

A White House lifeline to small biz

Obama, Geithner Outline Plan to Help Small Businesses (Update1)

FIRST 100 DAYS: SMALL BUSINESS FOCUS

[Life Long Dem]

6. Thanks,

[Abq_Sarah]

3. They're probably

Busy trying to gauge the actual financial impact on small businesses. Is this really a shot in the arm or is it going to have a negligible impact.

[4lbs]

5. Well, I own a small business, and my bank recently cut my line-of-credit in half.

I've had to readjust my purchasing priorities, putting off buying supplies. I've had to save most of it for my employees' paychecks while waiting for my clients to pay me on the invoices and bills I sent them.

Hopefully, I'll be able to get it back up to the original limit so I can start buying supplies again. This $15 billion in guarantees should help with that.

[Abq_Sarah]

8. It's particularly difficult

When you have to maintain stock. I haven't operated with a loan or LOC in years. Now that customers are holding back payments until the last minute in most cases and late in others, it's been a real crunch. Every penny that comes in goes to payroll, rent and taxes before anything else. I'm in a pretty small community and I have been approached about opening a line of credit with two local banks. I just can't see doing it without some indication that the customers will keep on coming.

[Dappleganger]

4. This is what the rethugs were whining about in the stimulus package...

Not enough help for the small biz people. However, I knew that O would be adding on separate deals for this area. The stimulus package was aimed at the country and states as a whole. This package is geared towards small businesses and is good that's separate. These rethugs needs to STFU and let the president do his JOB. He isn't going to forget anyone.

BTW, we have a friend in Mass who is forgoing HIS salary and had to lay off most of the company just to try to keep it afloat. He is also loaning his own money to many of those employees w/no interest so they can hang on until he's able to hire them back. He has enough money to retire and just shut down the company, but he is trying to save their livelihoods. He's also a republican, but is changing his mind and becoming far more sympathetic to O. He even said if this small biz package works for them that he'll probably vote for him next time around. When life hits you in the wallet it has a way of changing you.

[Abq_Sarah]

9. Most of the business owners I know locally

Are taking either a cut in pay or no pay at all trying to keep their companies going without laying off employees. For many of them, a loan just isn't going to be an option because their customer base has dropped off to the point where they can't guarantee income and aren't willing to put their personal assets on the line gambling that the economy will recover and customers will come back before they sink so far into debt they face bankruptcy. All the loans in the world aren't going to help if we don't have paying customers.

[backscatter712]

7. Small business stimulus is definitely a great thing!

Just helping them get loans at lower interest rates, and getting the banks to loosen up credit for them, that will do a hell of a lot to kickstart the economy.

Small businesses are the ones that tend to build things and employ people here in the U.S. rather than outsourcing and building in other countries. It will directly help fund the building of new business infrastructure and go to people's paychecks.

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