Obama Meets Donors to Promote Plan to Aid Small Businesses, Raise Money
President Barack Obama Small Business Meeting
Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images
President Barack Obama orders a sandwich before meeting with small business owners at the Tastee Sub Shop in Edison, New Jersey.
President Barack Obama orders a sandwich before meeting with small business owners at the Tastee Sub Shop in Edison, New Jersey. Photographer: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images
President Barack Obama met privately with Democratic donors and made a pitch for his plan to aid small businesses on a trip that combined campaigning for his economic policies and raising money.
Obama was helping the Democratic National Committee at two private events in New York City today, where donors paid as much as $30,400 to attend. With elections that will decide control of Congress less than four months away, the president is seeking to wrap up congressional action on parts of his agenda while also trying to help Democrats keep control of the House and Senate.
Polls show the sluggish economic recovery, lagging job growth and a federal deficit projected to hit a record $1.47 trillion this year will be top issues for voters in the midterm elections. Consumer confidence fell in July to a five-month low on concern about jobs and wages, the Conference Board reported yesterday.
In a stop earlier in Edison, New Jersey, Obama met with a group of small-business owners to highlight his initiative to free up credit and provide tax incentives to spur hiring. The House has passed the legislation, and Senate Democratic leaders are aiming to vote before they leave for an August recess.
“Government can’t guarantee success,” Obama said at a sandwich shop where he met with the owner and four other entrepreneurs from the area. “But it can create the conditions for small business to hire more people.”
Promoting Policies
Today’s event in New Jersey was one of three Obama has scheduled over the next week to highlight his economic policies. The president also plans to headline two more fundraisers in Illinois and Texas in the next two weeks.
Obama’s focus, in his talk with the business owners at the Tastee Sub Shop in Edison, was his plan to provide $12 billion in tax breaks, ease terms for loans guaranteed by the Small Business Administration and create a $30 billion fund to help community banks offer loans to small businesses.
With about 8.4 million jobs lost during the recession, the measure aims to help small business, which accounts for about two-thirds of U.S. jobs. Obama said help for such enterprises shouldn’t fall victim to election-year politics.
“Democrats and Republicans ought to be able to agree on this bill,” he said. “Small businesses are the backbone of our economy.”
Republican Critics
Critics call it a replay of the $700 billion bank bailout in 2008 and say it could also induce banks to make risky loans.
“The lack of credit for small businesses is a problem that needs to be addressed,” Alabama Republican Richard Shelby said during the Senate debate. “I do not, however, believe that we should try and solve this problem with another expensive and bureaucratic government program.”
In New York Obama was the headline guest at two fundraisers, one at the Four Seasons Hotel and the other at the home of Vogue editor Anna Wintour.
About 50 people were invited to each event for a donation of $30,400 per person, the highest amount permitted to a political party under federal election law, according to a Democratic Party official who spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss financial matters. Both events were closed to the press and the DNC didn’t release a list of those attending.
Donation Data
While Obama has targeted Wall Street for criticism over the financial crisis, employees in the securities and investment industry have given 56 percent of their donations to Democratic candidates and party committees for the 2010 election, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington-based research group.
That’s the Democrats’ highest percentage for an off-year election since 1990, when they received 57 percent of Wall Street contributions.
So far in this election cycle, Democratic candidates and party committees have gotten $29 million from Wall Street donors, compared with $22 million for Republicans.
Before the fundraisers, the president taped an interview for ABC’s “The View,” which is scheduled for broadcast tomorrow.
By combining the small-business event with the fundraisers, Obama is cutting the cost of the New York appearances to the Democratic Party.
Federal Election Commission rules allow for such sharing of presidential expenses, dividing the part of the trip that is “official” against the remaining “political” portion. Presidents of both parties have made use of that provision.
To contact the reporter on this story: Roger Runningen in Edison, New Jersey, at rrunningen@bloomberg.net
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