WHEREAS, One of the primary purposes of the proposed federal Small Business Jobs and Credit Act of 2010 (H.R. 5297) is to establish a Small Business Lending Fund Program that provides incentives for smaller banks to make new loans, establish a State Small Business Credit Initiative that would spur over $20 billion in new lending through innovative state-based programs, and eliminate capital gains taxes on owners of small business stock, a step that will spur investment, innovation, and job creation for small businesses; and

WHEREAS, The United States Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship’s Internet Web site states that “America’s 27 million small businesses are the nations’s engine of growth, pumping almost a trillion dollars into the economy each year, creating two-thirds of all new jobs annually and making up more than half the U.S. workforce”; and

WHEREAS, That small businesses create most of the jobs in the economy and, over the past decade and a half, America’s small businesses have created 65 percent of all new jobs in the country. More than half of all Americans working in the private sector are either employed by a small business or own one. These companies are the engine of job growth in America. They fuel our prosperity and should be at the forefront of our recovery; and

WHEREAS, We must continue our efforts on a bipartisan basis to help these firms stay in business and focus on the urgent tasks of growing our economy and creating jobs; and

WHEREAS, All industries in California, including the financial industry, believe that increasing current small business loan amounts to $5 million, coupled with making lower-cost capital available to community lenders, would stimulate the California economy as long as the applicants meet the financial requirements. As in any business, the best customers are the existing customers, and, in this case, those customers are those that have been servicing their loans but who are limited in their growth due to the current Small Business Administration loan limits; and

WHEREAS, While some financial institutions are holding onto their lending capital, the financial industry generally likes the Small Business Administration program and many financial institutions would like to lend more of their capital through the program because of the federal guarantees that are not normally available to non-Small Business Administration applicants. Therefore, the Senate supports the continued efforts of the United States Department of the Treasury to work with the Small Business Administration to provide additional support to smaller community lenders that are committed to increasing their lending to small businesses; and

WHEREAS, Because the financial impact to our California economy and to the United States economy of the enactment of the proposed federal Small Business Jobs and Credit Act of 2010 would be great, there would be a very large return on a small Small Business Administration investment; now, therefore, be it