August 10, 2016

In Des Moines, Clinton Vows to Help Small Businesses Prosper and Create Jobs

At Raygun, a Millennial-owned small business in Des Moines on Wednesday, Hillary Clinton pledged as president to help small businesses grow and prosper to create more jobs. Clinton would not only cut through red tape and simplify the tax code for small businesses but also break down barriers to help more women, people of color and millennials like the owner of Raygun become entrepreneurs and job creators. Clinton's “100-Day Jobs Plan” also includes provisions to prevent small businesses from being taken advantage of by the likes of Donald Trump, who has consistently stiffed contractors and manufactured much of his merchandise abroad.

Clinton said of Trump's record of outsourcing his merchandise, “So this is one of the big differences that I have with Donald Trump. [...] [H]e could make his ties in Denver.  He could make suits in Ohio.  He could make furniture in North Carolina.  You can build it in America.  And I am determined that we’re going to build more, and we’re going to be able to create more businesses and more jobs by doing so."

Clinton has already pledged a $20 billion initiative to create millions of new career opportunities for young Americans, including via a $1,500 tax credit for employers that create apprenticeships. To help unlock economic opportunity, Clinton also has a plan for free four-year-college tuition for working families, tuition-free community college, student-loan refinancing, and debt-free college available to all.

Clinton's remarks, as transcribed, are below:

“Thank you all.  I’m so happy to be here.  And we were just talking about our mutual friends, Tom […] and Tom Vilsack.  And I actually talked with them about you.  So this has got to be a tourist stop as well a going concern.  And I have to say, now that I’ve been here, ‘The Greatest Store in the Universe’ is not a bad idea […]

And Mike and I were talking about my dad, who ran a really small business, where he printed, with silkscreens, drapery fabric.  And it was […] the business that he started that provided us with a good, solid, middle class life.  And I was […] going there to help him when I was old enough.  He had these long, long tables, nothing as the attractive as the machinery out there, where the silkscreen would just go from one station to the next, to the next, all the way down the table; then two […] tables so that it would go from one table to the next table.  And then if it was two colors, it would go to the next silkscreen […], with the squeegee and the paint and […]

So this is really a truly […], what you’re doing here.  And I’m here in part to collect a t-shirt […] but in addition, to emphasize the importance of small businesses to our economy.  And I’ve been talking a lot in the last few weeks about the need to get more good jobs with rising incomes for more Americans.  But part of that has to be helping more people like Mike who starts and grows a business, and create the conditions in which they can be successful.

And there are a lot of young people in our country who are doing just that, or want to do that.  And they need to be given the support and the […] and the best conditions to succeed.  And Mike was telling me he started out selling t-shirts on the street. […] a t-shirt […].  And you’re in business.

And then from there, what I want to do is make it possible for more young people to do just that.  And part of my plan is […]with student debt.  We’re going to have a moratorium for three years on paying back student debt so that you can actually get started in your business because I know if you’ve […] here in Iowa, student debt is one of the […] that most people can’t get […] if they want to start their own business.  So I want to try to at least lower, if not eliminate, that hurdle.

So in my first 100 days, we’re going to do some big investments in infrastructure, clean energy, technology, and advanced manufacturing, and small business.  That will be the engine to help grow the economy.  And I’ve seen some great examples of that over the last 18 months here in Iowa.  The clean energy technology – I go around telling everybody across the country that Iowa gets, already, a third of its electricity from wind power.  Texas gets a lot of its energy now from wind.  We’re having more and more states make investment in solar.

So we’re beginning to put the pieces together.  But we need to accelerate that and invest in it.  And we have to do more on our roads, our bridges, our tunnels, our ports, our airports.  We also need to do more on water systems, sewer systems, […] after the terrible situation in Michigan, where when the water was […] and safe and […] But we also want to get a new, modern electric grid because we need a new grid to take all of the new energies […]. A lot of the wind comes from the center of the country, and we need to be able to deliver that elsewhere.

We also have to finish the job of making sure every part of our country is connected up to high-speed internet, to get broadband everywhere.  Do any of you live in a place or have ever lived in a place where you couldn’t get high-speed internet connectivity?  Yes?  Where did you live?

PARTICIPANT:  “Mingo, Iowa, about 30 miles north of here.”

HILLARY CLINTON:  “And it still is a problem there?”

PARTICIPANT:  “Yes.  We have no internet.”

HILLARY CLINTON:  “You have no internet?  Just think about that.  You have no internet.  And there was a recent study of teachers, and 70 percent of all teachers in the country said they assigned homework that requires students to use the internet. […], right, if we want kids to be familiar with the internet.  5 million kids have no access to that.  So you’re basically already starting to leave those 5 million kids behind.  And in some of the places that I’ve gone recently – we were in Pennsylvania and I was in Harrisburg, the capital, and they told me not very far outside the capital, you had dialup, which didn’t work that well, and that was the best that they could do.  So we’ve got to increase our infrastructure, both our physical and our virtual infrastructure, to make sure that people are connected, and then we keep moving forward on clean, renewable energy.

I also want to make clear that if you decide you want to start a business in the United States, and this business is a perfect example, there’s a lot you can buy and you can source in the United States.  So Mike was telling me everything that he gets from right here in our country.  I was just in a small brewery in St. Petersburg, Florida the president and his wife started, and their first brewhouse […] that they grew here and they bought from China.  Then they found a local company that could make it.  So now all the rest of them are made four blocks from their […]. So they’re not only now employing 50 people, 18 full-time, but they're also adding to the economy by buying from a local company.

So this is one of the big differences that I have with Donald Trump.  I have many big differences with him.  But one of them is that he makes all these things, but he doesn’t make any of them in the United States.  He could make his ties – I went to a tie factory run by two young men in Denver – he could make his ties in Denver.  He could make suits in Ohio.  He could make furniture in North Carolina.  You can build it in America.  And I am determined that we’re going to build more, and we’re going to be able to create more businesses and more jobs by doing so.

So this is – this is fun for me to be here in this bright, sunny business, and to see what you’re doing, and to get a little sense of the design, and to really congratulate you, Mike, on having a vision, sticking with it, building it, and now having about 15 employees. […] Do you want to say anything about what you did to get started?”


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For Immediate Release, August 10, 2016