HOUSE WHIP ERIC CANTOR ON OBAMA'S SMALL BUSINESS SPEECH

"While the rhetoric is all about trying to create jobs, Speaker Pelosi and her Members are trying desperately to ram through a health care bill that is paid for on the backs of small businesses and working families. It just does not make sense and is not consistent."

– House Republican Whip Eric Cantor

House Republican Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA) remarked at the GOP Press Stakeout on October 21, 2009, in anticipation to the president's speech today on small business initiatives.

“Good morning, the president today is going to go and speak to small businesses and going to announce yet another program to try and stimulate job creation at the small business level. And that intention behind that certainly is something that all of us want to see is the creation of more jobs. But the contrast is so stark if you look at what’s going on with the Democrats here on the Hill. While the rhetoric is all about trying to create jobs, Speaker Pelosi and her Members are trying desperately to ram through a health care bill that is paid for on the backs of small businesses and working families. It just does not make sense and is not consistent.

"As Sam just spoke, we see that the Speaker is going to host a group of individuals to talk yet again about what they can do to try and resurrect their attempt to stimulate the economy. Let’s face it, the stimulus bill didn’t create jobs, it simply left a lot of debt. And that’s where we are right now, and the individuals she's bringing in are the same individuals that she brought who indicated that the stimulus bill was going to stave off unemployment and keep it a rate below eight percent, which utterly did not happen. So we Republicans are going to continue to advocate that which we have been advocating since January in our stimulus plan. We believe very strongly we ought to create an environment in which taxes are low and incentives are in place for folks to put investment capital to work again. Our Economic Recovery Solutions Group, that the Leader has appointed, will be meeting again this week to make sure that we continue to posit the alternatives that we believe can result in putting Americans back to work.”

After the president's speech today, Representative Cantor (R-VA) issued the following statement after President Obama made a small business announcement in Maryland:

“Small business job creators must be protected. While the President’s announcement that he will repackage some of the same SBA and TARP programs for small businesses is fine, it remains clear that neither this Administration nor the Speaker of the House understand the struggles that small business job creators face.

“As the President spoke today, Democrats in Congress continued their push for new taxes and mandates on small businesses to pay for their government health care overhaul – policies that will force many small businesses to close and cost even more workers their jobs. Today, I call on the President to pledge to small business job creators across this nation that he will veto any legislation that will raise their taxes.

“Simply put, Americans don’t believe that the Administration has done enough to put Americans back to work, and doing so starts with a commitment to small business. During our first meeting in January, I told then President-elect Obama that we could work together to empower small business owners to hire more workers. Instead, the President followed the direction of Democrats in Congress and instead pushed a $787 billion government spending bill that stimulated the deficit, but failed to create jobs."