Jobs at wages Americans deserve

By U.S. Sen. Susan Collins
(R-Maine)

    As American families continue to struggle to get the jobs they need at wages they deserve, it is more important than ever for members on both sides of the aisle to come together on legislation to promote economic growth and job creation.
    That is why, along with Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA), I am urging Senate leaders to consider bipartisan legislation that we authored that does just that. Our bill focuses on areas of consensus that both parties can embrace to rekindle opportunity by helping small employers start up or grow and create good-paying jobs.

    In Maine, we have 141,000 small businesses. Here, and around the country, they are our nation’s job creators. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, small businesses generated 65 percent of the net new jobs created between 1993 and 2009. America’s small businesses employ nearly half of our nation’s workers and generate half of our nation’s gross domestic product.
    Even the smallest employers have a huge effect on our economy — 18 percent of all private sector employees work for businesses with fewer than 20 employees.
    But these employers cannot grow their businesses and add jobs unless they have the money to invest in building and expanding their businesses. Our bill, the “Small Business Tax Certainty and Growth Act,” is focused on making it easier for employers to plan their investments and aims to reduce the burden and uncertainty of taxation.
    Our bill would ease the tax burden on new employers by permanently doubling the deduction for start-up expenses from $5,000 to $10,000. It would extend tax provisions that assist restaurants and retail businesses that, unfortunately, expired at the end of last year, causing great uncertainty and discouraging investment and the creation of jobs.
    Our bill also would provide certainty for small employers that use Section 179 expensing to help finance their investments. Recent studies by the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), which has endorsed our legislation, show that constant changes in the tax code are among the top concerns of small business owners. The level of expensing allowed under Section 179 has been unpredictable from year to year, changing four times in the past seven years. This uncertainty makes it difficult, or even impossible, for small employers to take full advantage of this tax incentive in their long-term planning. Our bill would fix this problem by making the maximum expensing allowable under this section permanent at $250,000, indexed for inflation. We also expand the ability of small employers to use simplified methods of accounting.
    Putting people to work is my number one priority, and Congress and the President should be doing all they can to embrace policies to help employers to hire more workers. The bipartisan legislation that I have authored will help employers create good jobs here in Maine and around the country. I am committed to fighting for it, as well as other proposals that would restore economic growth and opportunity.