Dateline: 03/20/02

Stressing his desire for an American business environment where "the entrepreneurial spirit flourishes," President Bush has proposed a plan to help small businesses save on taxes and offer health insurance to their employees.

According to a White House Policy Statement, the president believes his plan would "free entrepreneurs to devote more time and resources to servicing their customers, developing their products, and helping their employees." Highlights of the president's Small Business Plan include:

• Providing tax incentives making it easier for small businesses to make job-creating investments. The president's proposal increases from $200,000 to $325,000 the dollar amount in new investments businesses can immediately expense (rather than depreciate) the first $25,000. Cost to the government would be about $7 billion over ten years. The president also proposes permanently eliminating of the estate, or "death tax."
  
  
• Helping small business owners provide their employees with health care benefits. The proposal would allow several small business to combine their employees when bidding for health insurance polices called Association Health Plans. In addition, the president's plan proposes to amend the Medical Savings Accounts program to improve health care options for employees who already have insurance.
  
  
• Allowing small businesses to earn interest on their checking accounts by repealing depression-era laws.
  
  
• Giving small businesses easier access to and a greater voice in the federal regulatory process. The proposal would strengthen the SBA Office of Advocacy to "ensure that the interests of small businesses are fully considered when agencies begin crafting new regulations." 
  
  
• Ensuring that the government contracting process is open to bids from all small businesses qualified to fulfill the government's needs. The plan proposes several changes designed to make it easier for small business to bid on lucrative government contracts.
  
  
• Continuing to develop online information sources to help provide small businesses with the information they need to succeed.

The president officially announced his Small Business Plan in a speech to the Women's Entrepreneurship Summit in Washington on Tuesday, March 19.

"Small business ownership is a great equalizer in America," stated the president. "The only connections you need are happy customers, a good business plan.  The only credentials you need are good products.  The only values you need is to be willing to take risk and to work hard."