Crapo: Ending Uncertainty Frees Up Private Sector to Create Jobs

Washington, DC - Idaho Senator Mike Crapo, a member of the Senate Budget and Finance Committees, released the following statement this evening regarding the President's address on jobs that was delivered to a joint session of Congress.

"The President's announcement tonight was mostly temporary solutions that don't fundamentally reform our economic and fiscal policy.  What I hear from business and industry leaders is that we need to refrain from the almost-daily increase in regulations that job creators in the private sector are facing," Crapo said.  "Businesses need an economic environment that rewards capital-formation, risk-taking, innovation and growth, not a regulatory climate that is strangling them.  We need new tax policies that encourage innovation and investment while making American companies more competitive.

Our tax code is the most anti-competitive and complex system for compliance that is conceivable.  Congress needs to fundamentally overhaul the tax code to unleash potential economic growth and stimulate job creation.  Our corporate and business tax rates are among the highest in the world.  We need to pursue tax policies that provide incentives for entrepreneurs to invest in plants, equipment and workers.  We must get the government back on the side of job creators helping them along, not in front of small businesses stopping them.

This proposal lays out nearly $450 billion in federal spending, yet it does not set out a long-term deficit reduction plan.  Instead of proposing new spending, the President should be focused on mechanisms that will encourage the small business community to create jobs.  Since 2009, the Administration has burdened our small businesses with new regulations-mandates on everything from health care to the housing and financial industries to the environment-that have made companies resistant to hiring.  Without a change in the government's policies, businesses will continue to be stymied.

Small businesses and employers, the keys to economic growth and job creation, have consistently pointed out that their single greatest need is a climate of certainty in government economic policy that rewards innovation and expansion.  These temporary measures might produce short-term results, but undermine long-term growth.  Businesses need certainty that future tax burdens won't rise in order to make permanent changes in their investments right now.