This week we celebrated the backbone of our nation’s economy with National Small Business Week.  America’s small businesses create about seven out of every 10 new jobs. Half of our nation’s workforce is employed at a small business, and 99.7 percent of all U.S. employers are small businesses.  Sadly, though, it is getting tougher and tougher for our entrepreneurs to create businesses and live the American Dream. We must stop this trend now and do more to help job creators grow opportunities.

We must grow an “opportunity economy” instead of Washington, D.C.’s economy. Tomorrow’s good paying jobs will come from small business who have the freedom to innovate from the ground up – not from top-down bureaucrats looking out for special interests. That is why I am working to advance bottom-up solutions to build a healthy economy – one that will empower all Americans to seek new opportunities and achieve a better life.  

There are an estimated 28 million small businesses in the United States and these businesses are facing overwhelming challenges of overregulation and uncertainty. In Congress, I have been working to alleviate many of these burdens on small businesses, the businesses that are the lifeblood of southeast and southern Missouri. I have introduced legislation that would help cut the regulatory red tape for job creators and families, called the SCRUB Act. We have also taken major steps to deal with the fallout from Obamacare, which is estimated to kill one million small business jobs. In addition to voting for a full repeal, the House has passed two pieces of legislation that would help small business owners hire more folks without triggering Obamacare’s mandates.

There is no shortage of people who want to start their own business. In our area, for example, I have heard about entrepreneurs with ideas for a hot sauce company, an auto detailer, and even a food truck. However, since 2008, more small businesses have closed than have opened. Even worse, this is the first time more businesses have closed than opened since we began tracking that data. Now is the time for us to turn this trend around and create an environment where we are encouraging entrepreneurship, not discouraging it. Let’s get Washington’s burdensome bureaucracy out of our local businesses, because government should be working for job creators not against them.