Transcripts For CSPAN3 SBA Administrator Linda McMahon Testifies At Confirmation Hearing 20170125

In washington, d. C. President ial adviser Kellyanne Conway will adjust the gathering, along with senator joni ernst, representative mia love and congressman chris smith. You can listen live on the cspan radio app. President trump has nominated World Wrestling entertainment ceo Linda Mcmahon to lead the Small Business administration. And yesterday the senates Small Business Committee Held a confirmation hearing for the nominee. The committee will come to order. Today for the hearing qualifications and start our advice and consent process for mrs. Linda mcmahon to head the sba. Linda, thank you so much for being here. And we have senators blumenthal and murphy to introduce mrs. Mcmahon. And both of these gentlemen have run against mrs. Mcmahon and vice versa, so i hope they i hope they didnt bring their files on and murphy to introduce her, and i hope they didnt we didnt forget. And senator blumenthal, the floor is yours, and thank you so much for gracing with us your presence. Thank you, mr. Chairman, and to you and the Ranking Member senator shaheen, i am pleased to join my colleague in introducing our fellow resident of connecticut Linda Mcmahon. We know her as a fellow citizen of connecticut, but also as a successful Business Leader as the cofounder and former ceo of the wwe. Also a stig nif cant contributor to many thrill philanthropic causes including where i live in connecticut. Mr. Chairman, i recommend her, because i believe she would be an excellent fit for this agency based on her experience and the expertise as a Business Leader. She knows as i do that Small Businesses are the backbone of the economy and the most vibrant and important job creators. They not only innovate by fostering new jobs, but they also invent new products, and they are the startups in every sense and they embody the American Dream having visited many of them in connecticut. I know how they create jobs and products and opportunities for others. And sba plays a integral role as many of us in supporting Small Businesses financially and encouraging them with expertise and experience. And Linda Mcmahon has that expertise and she is a tireless fighter and leader. Her professional life has been about building businesses. She as struggled and survived in the Small Business trenches hiring and firing and making payrolls and working in the trenches. We have shared our differences, but i have never questioned her unwavering drive and focus. She has used her business to help veterans and women realize their own dreams and opportunities. I am sure under her leadership she will continue to spearhead opportunities for veterans and women. That is what has been the focus of her professional life most recently. And so i am pleased to be here to introduce her and recommend her to the committee. She understands the needs of states like connecticut who are still working hard to recover from the economic recession. Who need new jobs, and i hope that she is going to continue to have connecticut at the top of her mind as she assumes this new role and i look forward to working with her and the rest of the members of the committee will as well. Thank you very much. Thank you, senator blumenthal. I was hoping she would have idaho at the top of the mind. I will let her say that. I dont believe she will. Senator murphy, thank you for coming, and we are all busy these days and it is tough to push some things aside, but the floor is yours. Thank you, mr. Chairman, and chair shaheen, it is my pleasure to recommend Linda Mcmahon as the next leader of the business administrati administrations. It is going to be interesting to see the three us who duked it out after political campaigns, and politics cannot survive if we dont continue to find a way to work after the fight is over. Im here to support linda not because we are magically one mind, but because i have confidence that she is going to give good sound counsel when it comes to President Trump when it comes to Small Businesses. I believe she has passion to the job, and it is vital. At the core, the sba mission is simple. To help build and start Small Businesses. And every owner of a Small Business wants to own a big business. Before you sits a very talented and experienced business persiu who did that. Linda has shepherded her business from a small intenterpe to hundreds of employees around the world. And she understands the unique challenges as senator blumenthal said about women businesses. She cofounded the Women Leadership live which helps to e equip women be successful Business Leader, and i know she will continue to build on the momentum of the previous director of the Obama Administration. And it has for the first time in its history surpassed 5 businesses owned by women. And i am sure she will continue to partner this with the womens business could be sincil which success in connecticutme mentco. And i saw firsthand the fight that linda brings to the endeavor that she takes on and we will have disagreements, but i will never question if she has the determination and the energy to take on this administration. I am proud to be here to support her. Thank you, senators blumenthal and murphy, and we will advice the guinness book of World Records about this event andp keep it noted. And because we know that everybody is drinking out of the fire hose these days, you will be excused and you will see it when you need to see it. Thank you so much, and thank you for coming. Thank you, mr. Chairman, and thank you for the opportunity. Linda, so you know where we are and where we are headed. I will deliver a brief opening statement, and senator shaheen as well and then administer the oath, and then the floor is yours for an opening statement, and then as you can see, you have a list of people with deep probing questions who will take turns from each side. So in any event, and first of all, thank you for coming to meet with me and spending the time that you did. Thank you for being willing to speak on this important appoi appointme appointment, and the Small Business administration is not a large federal agency, as federal agencies go, but to the business person, a Small Business person who it can be one of the most important and critical endeavors that the government undertakes. You and i were able to the loaning of the Small Businesses, and you will find when you drill down that there is a very robust fleet of lenders out there who service the Small Business community through the Small Business administration, and i think that you will be well satisfied with how they operate, what they to, and the work they do for Small Business. Of more importance to me, because of that part of the operation doing so well, is the efforts and the sba undertakes to try to level the Playing Field for Small Businesses. When we talk about every business, it used to be that when we started in politics the most hated organization in any government was irs and they have fallen way back in the other agencies that do the regulatory things that the government does, and have really riztone the top. In my have really risen to the top. In my state, the epa is way up there. After that others, and if you ask any Small Businessman or any business, if you ask what is the biggest problem they wont say access to capital or the taxes are too high, they will tell you that the regulatory structure of the government in america is strangling businesses. And you will find it everybody at the table can tell stories about the Government Agencies coming into the Small Businesses and causing them a great deal of difficulty. We have an operation within the s sba and called the office of advocacy, and they are supposed to be independent, and they have not been, and they are supposed to stand up and complain loudly every time the federal government does that affects Small Businesses. And there is a process in place for them to actually formally do this, and it has not worked well, and i am hoping as we go forward that we are going to be able to make it work better, and the poster child for that is the rule that was proposed for the waters of the united states, and there, the finding and so the office of advocacy is a big problem especially for departments of agriculture and others, and the agency said, no, this is a finding that it wont have a Significant Impact on businesses. I mean, you have to be brain dead to reach that kind of a conclusion. In any event, i know that you are, and you share my concern with that. And i hope that we will be able to do more for the Small Businesses, and we all know that when the government puts out a regulation, if you are General Electric corporation, and it comes in to hand it to the army of lawyers and compliance officers and what have you have to be on an ability to take care of i. And if a man fixes lawn mow ers in the garage, it becomes a federal inquiry from the federal government and cutts into his work dramatically, and we look forward to that working on that as we go forward and with that i yield to my distinguished colleague, mrs. Jeanne shaheen. Thank you, mr. Chairman, and congratulations for taking over the gavel as the chairman of this committee. We have had the opportunity to Work Together in the past very well. I have. And i look forward to working with you over this coming session to address the needs of Small Businesses. I also want to recognize the new members of the committee. Senator duckworth on the democratic side, and on the republican side, senators inhofe, young and rounds, and welcome welcome to the committee. I think that you will find that this is a committee that works on the strong bipartisan way to the address the concerns of Small Businesses. So i look forward to continuing that, and i am please ed d to welcome in linda mchan who is President Trumps nominee to the head the Small Business administration. I appreciated the opportunity to meet with you and to hear your passion for the work that Small Businesses do. I got on the committee in 2008 after i got elected to the senate, because Small Business is such a concern for 96 of our employers in New Hampshire are considered Small Business businesses. And they are not just important to New Hampshire and so many of the states represented on this committee, but they are the engine of the e kconomy that drives this nation. 2 of 3 jobs created are from Small Businesses. They are leaders when it comes to innovation, and they produce, and this is a statistic that is one of my favorites, they produce 14 times more patent thans smapatents than larger businesses, and im not sure that people appreciate that creativity. And unlike the big businesses the Small Businesses have not fully recovered from the great recession. For example, according to a Harvard Business school and si Small Business loans have dropped by 20 since the financial crisis, while lending to large firms has increased to 4 . That is why sba and the programs are so critical. Last year alone, the sba backed more than 70,000 loans to Small Business s, and supporting 29 billion in lending and nearly 700,000 jobs. The sba helped Small Businesses win more than 90 billion in contracts and provide couns counselling to more than 11 m 1 million contracts. And so i know that is why you are here, mrs. Mcmahon and i look forward to your responses to questions today. Thank you. I will warn you that senator shaheen has referred to the members as new members of the committee for a while, but they have been around a while, so you wont be getting the softball questions. With that, i would ask you to stand and be sworn if you would raise your right hand. Do you solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and knot being tu truth so help you god . I do. And i understand that you may have introductions of your own . I certainly do. I am proud to introduce my daughter stephanie and her husband paul levesque. And, yeah, please, stand up. Yes, welcome. And i have friends who have traveled around the country to be here today and i appreciate their presence as well. And at this time, the floor is yours for an opening statement. Thank you very much. Thank you, chairman rich, and Ranking Member shaheen and distinguished members of the committee. Im honored to have your consideration to be the head of the small biz usiness administration. I would like to thank senators blumenthal and murphy to have the kind introductions and it is nice to be on an even Playing Field today. I would like to express my gratitude to President Trump for the opportunity to join his administration and the confidence in me. As an entrepreneur, shared the experience of the nations Small Business owners, and we are more than the products and services. We are people. We are families, the Small Businesses that are the engine of the national e kconomy are driven in part by people working to put food on the table, and pay for kids braces and swimming lessons and save for college and prepare for their retirement, and whether it san organic farmer or app developer with one employee or 100, and we cannot for ghaet Small Businesses with people and goals and values that cannot be calculated on the profit and loss statement. If i have the honor of being confirmed as the head of sba i will do my best to advocate on their behalf. My husband and i built our business from scratch. We started out sharing a desk. Over decades of hard work and strategic growth we built it into a publicly traded Global Enterprise with more than 800 employee employees. I am proud of our success. I know every bit of the hard work that it took to create that success. U remember the early days when every month, i had to decide whether i should continue to lease a typewriter or if i could finally afford to buy it. Yes, believe it or not, that 12 a month at that time made a difference in our budget. Like all small biz usiness owne i know what it is like to take a risk on an idea, and manage the cash flow, and navigate the regulations and the tax laws and create jobs. Since stepping down as ceo of wwe in 2009, i have worked to help more people have the opportunity to pursue those goals. In my travels throughout connecticut in 2010, and 2012 when i was campaigning, i met with more than 500 Small Business owners and touring the shops, restaurants, offices, factories and sharing the ideas in the round table discussions. Job growth was a pillar of my campaign, and because small b businesses are responsible for half of all of the private sector jobs and a ma jjority of the new jobs, they were my focus. And for the past two years, i promoted women and en tre repreneurship as the cofounder and the ceo of the startup called the Women Leadership live. I wanted to share my vast experience with others who are launching startups or looking to scale their businesses. Through live events and webinars we educated entrepreneurs about things like applying for a loan and developing a Business Plan. And we worked to build their confidence. I always say that even entrepreneurs with the best ideas need a little wind beneath their wings. Women leadership life hopes by sharing the stories of sucks is and failures and the network of contacts and resources and the strategies for addressing challenges, we can give Small Business owners the confidence to help to propel them forward. Small Business Owners do not just need confidence in themselves. In order to take a risk, they need confidence in the economy. Should i have the honor of leading the sba i will work to the revitalize a spirit of entrepreneurship in america. Small businesses want to take a risk on the expansion or the new hire without fearing onerous fees and taxes and fines that will make the growth unaffordable. We want to renew optimism in the economy. Small businesses have had tough blows in the last decade. I know what it is like to take a hit, and i learned it is not how you fall, but how you get up that truly matters. Early in my career, when we were very young, my husband and i declared bankruptcy and with invested in a company that we did not understand and people we trusted that we shouldnt have. And so we were left holding the bag and we worked hard to pay off the debts, and bankruptcy was a hard decision and a u tough time in our lives. We lost our home, and my car was reprocessed in the driveway and we had a young son and baby on the way, and we had no choice but to work hard and so Start Building again to support the family. When our daughter e stephanie was born and a Perfect Little baby full of promise and potential, i took it as an omen that things would be okay. We owed it to her and our son to make it okay, and fortunately, we did. As i have visited businesses throughout the kcountry through leadership live, i have seen the same resiliency over and over again, and the e entrepreneurs are fighters and they work hard and when they are knocked down by the recession or the Natural Disaster or the simply change in the consumer demand, they chatu to their creativity to make it better. But sometimes they need a el helping hand. If i acm confirmed i will make sure that the sba hand is efficient and possible. I believe in leadership by example. As the ceo, i never expected the employees to do something that i was not willing to do myself. I believe in setting expectations, and holding the people accountable, but trusting them to do the job for which they were hired. If i confirmed, i look forward to workinging with the sba staff. I am eager to learn from their experience and expr tease. I will listen and their ideas and concerns and recommendations will be taken seriously. I know that there is going to be new challenges in the government setting, but i will commit myself with the same responsibility to deliver value the taxpayers of america as i did to the shareholders of the company. Over the past few weeks i have met with many members of the committee and appreciate the kind words i have received. I am very happy to speak before you today and happy to answer your questions. Thank you, and we appreciate that. The way that we will do this is to use the early, what they call the early bird method or the first come first serve method, and people back and forth bewoon the republicans and the democrats and i will will go first, but i want to save my time to interject as we see appropriate down the pike. I will yield the floor to my, senator shaheen. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you for your statement, mrs. Mcmahon. I know that we spoke about this and it is important for you to address in the front of the committee, because you have been quoted as saying that you supported merging the sba into the department of commerce, and that proposal has been a major concern for businesses in my home state who believe that their voice in washington is already not loud enough. So i would like to know if you can clarify your statement if sba should be stand alone or merge into another agency. Thank you, Ranking Member shaheen and the opportunity to qualify. When i was running for senate in connecticut i was strong advocate for stopping the duplicitous programs. And every year, there is a list out. And during that time, president obama had looked at merging some of the agencies. And when i asked if i was to support sba and the commerce, i was not focused on the particular ones, but i was focused on the duplicative programs and costs, and so i wanted to be a Firm Believer that sba is a stand alone agency and i am proud that President Trump has kept it as a cabinet post and i intend to serve my full term, and execute as well as i can to advocate on behalf of Small Businesses. Well, thank you very much for clarifying that. In New Hampshire, sba has made significant progress over the past few year, and we have seen growth in lending and government contracting, and to some extent, this is the work of so many of s sbas Resource Partners and the womens business center, and s. C. O. R. E. And Veterans Outreach centers and the district offices, and i think that these partners are critical to the mission of sba and how to help Small Businesses. So as administrator, how would you identify opportunities to maximize sbas Resource Partners and provide Adequate Funding for their staffing and programs . Well, first of all, i look forward to going to the district districts and the regions to meet with the sba members and the leaders and manager s s in offices to hear about what programs are working and what programs are not. I dont have a working knowledge today of how successful those programs have been except to note that from you, you seen success and many of the members i have talked to. So i want to continue to encourage the outreach. My former company wwe, we were always concerned about veterans. And the returning veterans and how to have jobs and wwe is part of hire a Veterans Program so that veteran aspect of helping them to create jobs. As i have already stated, i have been forth coming and wanting Women Entrepreneurship to grow, and continue to support that. It is near and dear to my heart. I will continue the outreach with all of the different organizations and continue to mentor through the Womens Centers as well. Thank you. Im pleased to hear that and i know that the Resource Partners in New Hampshire and across the country will be pleased to hear that as well. As we discussed in the meetings, part of the success of the sba is contracting, and senator murphy said that for the first time that women, Small Business owners had reached 5 in terms of access to federal contract, and so it is a milestone, but a very slow start to what we need to do more of and so i am curious if you can please talk about the ability to increase contracts. I would like to know what the contracts rx and best contracts, and best fit the businesses to the contracts. In terms of the prime contracts and the subcontracts, we have to make sure that we have adequate rpttation for the growth. So i would want to make sure that the business s haes have t right outreach, and the right advocates in the markets and that is what i would focus on is trying to make sure that we have the right advocates. Thank you. My time is up, but i wanted to make a point, mr. Chairman, of announcing they will enter a question into the record on behalf of congresswoman lydia vilas kwez who is the Ranking Member of the house Small Business committee which relate s to the ongoing situation in puerto rico and it is something that we discussed when we met, mrs. Mcmahon, and so i will be submit ing th submitting that for the record. Thank you very much. Senator paul. Congratulations and welcome. Thank you. I think that the chairman put it well when he said that Small Businesses are worried about the the cost of regulation which is a deal to Small Businesses when you are imagining 1,000 banks or one bank the compliance cost is larger if you have one bank than if you can spread it through 10 banks and 10,000 employees, and this goes on across america, and in addition, we have big businesses that come to washington, and are in favor of the regulation, because they see it as an impediment to smaller competition, so i think that Small Business does need a voice, and i guess what i would like to the ask is if in your opinion you are underregulated or overregulated or you think it is a problem. Do you have any ideas thouf businesses in the Small Business Administration May be able to help wp the Regulatory Burden . Thank you, senator, for the question. What i heard constantly when i campai campaigned in connecticut is that from Small Businesses the of regulation environment was causing them time, effort, and money that kept them from focusing on the businesses. And Small Businesses including mom and pop businesses starting up and i have a special place in my heart, and they are the chief kooshgs and bottle washer, and the ceo and the cfo and the janitor and everything else, and when they get a packet of regulation forms to fill out with regulations, and a, they dont know what it s and they cant afford the hire the lawyers u to get through, and so they are either more at fault and not in compliance or they have taken time a wway from the businesses to do it. So it is difficult for the Small Business s businesses to have to suffer under that kind of the burden of the Regulatory Environment. One of the other burdens or the costs of Small Business is taxes. I would not discount it from the regulations, but it is equal. A lot of the Small Businesses pass through their income llcs as individual incomes and moderately successful business may be paying 39. 6 in income tax, but in addition you have obama care tax and 33 or 34 before you god forbid live in the northeast and have a 12 state income tax on top of that. So i think that there is a great burden. You wont get to necessarily address the tax policy directly, unless there are ways as a Small Business administration, but you will be a voice in the cabinet. So i would like the to hear your thoughts on in general the same question, overtaxed . Undertaxed . Is the tax structure an impediment to the formation of the Small Business . Thank you. Having started out as a subs corp, and as with Womens Initiative live, i understand as an llc the capacity of how that works. I think that if we are involved in tax reform, we have to consider how to also make it a level i Playing Field for the passthrough companies and i would be a strong advocate for that. Thank you. Good luck. Thank you. And senator cardin. Ms. Mcmahon, thank you very much for being willing to serve in this public position and we also thank your family, because it is a family sacrifice, and if you think that you have traveled before, this is a big country, and we thank you, your willingness to serve. I could go over the numbers of the half a million in maryland and over 1 million jobs, but focusing on the individual companies where i have visit and seeing a Small Business to learn how the deal with student athletes with head injuries or the new drugs along the i270 corridor to help the quality of life or see a business, a Small Business developing a better way to help other businesses deal with the administrative costs and the National Defense so many of the Small Companies are figuring out the better weapon systems or the ways to test them for efficient circumstances and all of that efficiency, and a that is the creativity of the Small Businesses, but one thing in common, they used the Small Business administration for mentor org developing a Business Plan, because at times sits difficult to know what the bank needs to get a loan, and they use the services of sba for capital, because it is challenging for the Small Businesses to get particularly Venture Capital to be able to take those risks. They use the Small Business administration as an advocate to know they got fair Government Procurement, and in this region, Government Procurement is a big part of business opportunities. So as we talked in the office, and i thank you very much for the perm visit, but we need an advocate as the Small Business administrator in dealing with other agencieagencies. We talked about the procurement issues and talked about them about the 5 for the women and set aside for the minority businesses and veteran owned businesses, but one thing is in common, when a big agency is doinging the procurement, they have at times would like as much as possible the contractors, there and they would tend to bundle the contracts that make it virtually impossible to be a prime contractor, and we have ad tempted to pass antibundling legislation so it is not done. Can you share with me how you intend to advocate on behalf of the Small Businesses particularly among the other Government Agencies to make sure that the procurement is fair to help Small Businesses grow. Thank you very much for mentioning that the again, because we did have a good conversation about it. The best way to obfuscate many of this stuff is to not build on top, but peel it away and look at the fair shot for our Small Business businesses. They should not continue to be squeezed out. I want to be the advocate and i want to hear from them, and i want to find out, well, how did this happen, and how can we get around this, with whom do we need to speak to, and how can i advocate more strongly on your behalf, and what avenues have you gone down or what avenues do you need to go to reach in and make it more about you. I would work very hard on that. And i also appreciate what you have talked about the returning veterans, and that is a big part of our responsibility to help veterans. And i share with you the initiative to develop the Montgomery County chamber of conference in my state institute ad National Procurement to have a National Effort to bring the returning warriors to mentoring them into starting Small Businesses and leadership. As a result, 700 veteranowned businesses have been helped with the program in maryland. It received hel republican from the Small Business administration to make it a national programk and i urge you to lookt a these types of programs because they really do help the entrepreneur spirit for the returning warriors and do everything that we can to help them to come back into the country. Thank you very much. One quick comment, i on the board of america corporate patter ins and it is a mentoring company for returning veterans to help make the transition between the military and the private sek to, and so that the outreach is to the companies and the corporations that then mentor these men and women who are returning and guide them and often have them come into the company and spend time with the mentors and the particular branch they want to be in. It has been successful. And also, in regards to the access of capital, it is particularly difficult for the min minority businesses, and i hope to find more ways to do more outreach to help the capital reach minority businesses. Thank you very much. And over to senator inhofe. Well, if chairman risk can call you linda, i will, too. I will tell you how much we have been taking the time that we have done, and if you have spent as much time as you have with me, you have been very busy and taking this seriously. Yes, i shgs , i have been. And i particularly enjoyed that i did not get up to the numbers that you did, 800 employee, but i can remember spending 20 years getting beat up by the bureaucracy and so i understand a little bit about it. I think that the office that you have has the opportunity to do so much more than it has in the past. We have a guy, Todd Buchanan who is the head of the Oklahoma Farm Bureau and talking to him about the problems of the farmers mot just in my state of oklahoma which is a farm state, but throughout america, he said it is nothing in the agricultural bill. It is the overregulation of the epa. Now, those are his words in my words, too. So we watched this happen. And he said of all of the problems that we have had of all of the overreg you haitians that scared tus most was the wotus the water bill. A l a lot of the liberals would are prefer to take that jurisdiction away from the states and give it to the federal government. And there was quite an effort there. I bridge that up, because you have as we discussed in your department, you will be responsible for, the office of advocacy. Yes. And now the office of advocacy is where it is an independent office, and its purpose is to advocate on behalf of Small Businesses to other agencies and weigh in on the rule making. During the last administration, the office has been pretty much ignored. And so i, and i think that you are going to have to start with the zero base and if you have given thought to how you would have the office of advocacy, they are available for people who it was designed for originally. Thank you very much. If i have the privilege of being confirmed, i would like to stre strengthen that office, because i have always been a defender of the little guy, and we need someone who is going to go to bat for our Small Businesses. And im just the girl to do that. Why you think that it was not done before . Why was it not done in the last administration when we had many, and i have 300,000 Small Businesses in my state of oklahoma and i did not hear from all of them, but almost all of them on the problems. So how are you go ing the reviv that . Well, i think that i have to first find out why it did not work. I have heard that comment from more than one that the office of advocacy need s s to be strengthened and have some teeth saying, that you are not come plig and why arent you complying, and as of right now, those teeth are not there, and i n need to find out why, and i dont know why, but i will get back to you, and i will look forward to working with you on that. Is assume that the number of people who are working, and a lot of people who have been not as responsible and responsive to the Small Businesses and you will have a chance to determine who they are and if necessary making the changes, i assume that is an accurate statement. Yes. Thank you very much. And they have within there, the Small Business Innovation Research program that provides funding for the Small Businesses to develop and commercialize new Innovative Technologies and the compa companies receiving the sba funding is better chance to bring ideas to market than those not. And in many rural states including oklahoma, they have underperformed in this funding, and can you tell me what the sba changes that they made to improve this . Well, again, i thank you. It is difficult to say what you are going to do when you dont understand what has been done here today. I understand that the sbir has been helpful with the are research and the Development Aspect in providing that research for the ostartups and i would like to understand what the startups need and how we can continue with the sbir. Have you been able to get the benefits of the sbir and what they are doing in your company or know people personally who ha have . I do not. I see. Okay. I u look forward to working with you. Thank you. Thank you, senator. Thank you, mr. Chairman, and thank you for attending the Committee Hearing last week on the Sub Committee on Regulatory Affairs and federal management. It was all about the Small Business and the Small Business advocacy ole that sba should be playing that we were disappointed that may not have been as aggressive as what they should have been in the last several years, and i look forward to continuing to work with senator inhofe on a legislative solution to a lot of the problems. I noticed when i left that subcommittee, nobodys hair was on fire. No, mr. Chairman, it was a great discussion, and we welcome you at any point, linda to, the subcommittee. It is a great place for the gathering and talking about the Cross Section between Small Business interests and the Regulatory Reform. I wish just for a minute that you had to be able to turn around speaking about the challenges that you had and seeing the the pride and affection in your daughters face. And it is quite lovely. It is clear that you have a great relationship and as my mothers heart just got a little warmed by that affection, and i think that it is what so many of the Small Businesses are about. They are about families, and they are about working together and learning thou overcome struggles. But i want to talk about two groups of entrepreneurs who are looking for a different level of engagement and involvement. We have talked about programs and the first is young en tre are preneur preneurs and native entrepreneurs and thank you for coming to my office to have a discussion, but young enb e tre preneurs may write the best app or program, but awe they dont know how to translate it into business. I personally believe that we are experiencing a complete failure in Financial Literacy in america that is finding its way into the business community. I am interest ed ed in the thou and throw in native piece, and then you can have the rest of my time. Native americans have experienced a lot of economic challenges, real areally from the initial engagement in this country. The challenges that sba has in Indian Country are xaserror baited by the challenges that we have with jurisdiction, and the challenges that we have with making sure that there is a commercial code that people can rely on. So i think that im interested in how you can work with both of these groups of entrepreneurs to engage a future for Small Business in america, and especially in the india country, but especially among the young entrepreneurs. And obviously, i have more experience with young en retre a entrepreneurs than indian state. I would look forward to working with you to find out how the sba can work with the indian Small Business developers. I look forward to that. Thank you. E en tre r entrepr have unreal is a, i have and they have developed a app in the dorm room or something, and somebody is going buy me and im going to be a millionaire, u bit does not work that way, and so there is a discipline that needs to be shown more to the young ep tre preneurs, and sit on the board of trustees at Sacred Heart University in connecticut, and wu one of the things that we do is to incubate Small Business development there. As we are striving to sort of walk these young entrepreneurs through the steps of business, but they are actually creating the businesses and developed tshirts and hats and low goes and understanding intellectual property and all of that and how it is managed, and the whole educational process is luke, wow, this is how it works, but they are making a success of it, and running successful businesses. We need to continue it, and not just in the universities, but i have kids, you know, in high school, and they dont know how the balance a checkbook and really, we need to have a f fundamental understanding of the basics of the economics as we are Going Forward to develop the next generation of young business people. There is no dispute here that we need to grow the Financial Literacy in order for people to be successful. I saw it when i was tax commissioner, and people with great ideas and great ability, and didnt know how to file even the simplest of the tax forms. And so, not that we shouldnt have fewer tax forms, but there is going to be a need for some tax forms to be filed. I look forward to continuing our discussion especially about the challenges of native americans and entrepreneurship. Thank you very much. Senator highcamp thank you. Senator ernst. Thank you, mr. Chairman and mrs. Mcmahon and i than you for the time that you took to sit down with me and the other members of the committee. And thank you as well to senators blumenthal and murphy for being here today. So many times we are caught up in partisanship that we forget that there are many, many issues that we are passionate about that share a bipartisan nature. I want to thank them as well to be here to support you today and i know that many members of this Committee Love to work on things together, especially when it comes to Regulatory Reform, and tax reform and others. So i wanted to thank them for that. And now, we sat down in my office, and we talked about a number of issue, and os, and one issues that i brought up is a proskwekt aject that i have beeg on for the last years, and it is legislation to give Business Owners a stronger voice in the regulatory act, and it is called the prove it act. The legislation passed out of this Committee Last year, and worked hard with the folks at sba and the Obama Administration to get their input and feedback, because the goal is to make sure that the bill is bipartisan and that s that it is a success, and so we did talk about it. And the purpose of the prove it act is to strengthen the voice of Small Business owners and provide incentives to agencies to improve the quality of their certifications and analysis when they are actually writing a rule. And simply put, the prove it act says that if there is a battle of analysis between different age agencies on the Economic Impacts of a rule, then there should be a third party that will step in, are review the facts, and then issue an objective assessment. As you know, the Small Business of advocacy testified in front of this Committee Last year, and because they were in d disagreement of the epa and the corps of engineers had completed on the wotus rule, and they wanted have significant Economic Impact on Small Business. As well with this proveit act, there are a number of organization tas that supported it. The nfib and the chamber and the women impacting public policy, all of those organizations supported it. And can i get a commitment from you to work with me on this legislation and help implement it especially given the desire by our president to make sure that we are reducing Regulatory Reform especially on Small Business businesses. Thank you, senator. I did enjoy the meeting and when you talked to me about this legislation, i thought, wow, isnt that just a really common sense thing, and i think that we need more common sense in government. If you have two sides that cant agree, you have a referee, a third party to come in. And so i like what you told me about the bill to make the agencies Work Together before it had to become like a public event, and help with drafting the legislation, so i think that it is, and i think that it is a very good piece of legislation that i would like to learn more about and i look forward to working with you, to make sure that we can support the Small Businesses. Thank you. I appreciate that so much, and then on a related topic, too, what are the goals just in the first few months should you be confirmed. What are the goals of the first few months at the sba . There are so many things to look at. We want to be mentors to the entrepreneurs and grow and kr create jobs and if i walked in the first thing and somebody said, what is the first thing that you want to look at to i dand i would say a lo look at today is that i want to look at the Disaster Preparedness progr program. I dont know how effective they have been but i know that when Hurricane Sandy hit, and the devastation up and down the east coast and connecticut and new jersey and senator booker can speak to that, and there is a delay in the time of response from the sba. I dont know if it is because it is a massive storm, and went so far and resources were not there, but we have to be ready for that. And we just two nights ago, tornadoes in georgia that killed 19 people. So we have to be ready for disaster releaf when our Small Businesses are put out of business for a while. You know, the e kconomy suffers because they rout of business, and we need to get the funds to them if they are out of their homes and make the direct loans to them out of the homes and be back and function iing and be families, and so that is a real passion that we need to take to a strong look at. And thank you. Iowa is not immune from that Natural Disasters and in iowa 90 of the jobs come from Small Business, so thank you very much, mrs. Mcmahon. Yes. Senator duckworth. Thank you, mr. Chairman, and thank you, ms. Mcmahon for spending so much time with me yesterday. I appreciate the cab dor andor use of 1099 employees as it pertains to the health of the wwe performers and the potential of the someone who is going to be heading the sba and promoting the Small Businesses, i dont wait a standard that Small Businesses use 1099 employees to avoid paying and providing the Health Benefits and the protections for the Small Business employees just like anyone else. I appreciate your address iing e potential monopolistic concerns at wwe. I thank you for that time. One of the goals of the sba and congress created the sba to achieve two goals, to help american Small Business, and help these firms to win a fair amount of government contracts. I want to focus on the second goal. As a member of congress committed to making government work better, i am concern ad that the Procurement Program is not meeting the needs of Small Businesses. In illinois, 89 of the businesses are Small Businesses and employee 46 of the People Living in illinois. So they are a significant portion of our economy. I often hear from the small ploem eyes who say that there is jargonfilled web sites like fed biz ops and sam. Gov and very confusing tools, and they may be fine for corporations who have teams of accountants and lawyers who can weed through to see what they need, but we talked about how a ceo at the begin, and the chief cook and bottle washer, and janitor of the enterprise. But these federal tools are failing the Small Businesses who want to do business with the government but just dont know where to start. Simply put, the federal government is falling short of tapping the full potential of the Small Businesses in america who are ready for the agencies to achieve the mission with the products and the services they can provide. If confirmed, can you committ to working with me to streamline and modernize these vital online C Contracting tools. Thank you very much, senator. As someone who, herself, is technologically challenged, i can u. P. Nderstand the frustrati of Small Business owners who are trying to break through the morass of looking at confusing web sites. It is very important that we make the tools simplest most direct way they can be so that they are easy to use. If you make it too complicated, there are many who give up because they can get through, and they dont have the resources to have it explained and i would look forward to working with you if i am confirmed so that we can sort through it, and say, okay, lets bring someone else in, and hear from the people, and what is it that we really need so that when the web sites are developed and. And once these have been refined and contracts are given to them by the government, and will you help to improve the contracting and the sub contracting businesses to contract. And we talked about it how they Small Businesses and womenowned businesses and veteranowned businesses and i spoke of the major bur keaucracy at the v. A. And i hope that you will work with me of improving the e goals across government and to hold the agencies accountable for providing the minority and women and veteran owned businesses with a fair portion of the federal contracts. I am very happy that we have gotten to 5 , and id like to see that go up. So, yes, i would look forward should i be honored to be confirmed to working with you, and all of the members of the committee. I have been invited to several of your states to visit with the sba offices and i look forward to that, and as a matter of fact i would sign right up to visit many of the states here, thank you. And i would not say to come to chicago in the winter. Okay. And finally, i want to address the prospect of the president s potential trillion dollar Infrastructure Program that he spoke about on the campaign trail as a candidate, and seem ts to be recommitting himself to a significant and much needed investment in the infrastructure across the country, and again, this is going back to making sure that the Small Businesses have a shot at the contracts. Small businesses are operating in the hometowns all across the country, and not clustered in small cities, and they can bring j jobs and development to the area. I hope that you will work with me to make sure that special attention is paid to providing the Small Businesses with the small opportunity to compete for work, and in particular, small disadvantaged enterprises. Yes, like forward to that and i ran into those issues in connecticut that the Small Business office talked about how they were shuttled over, and they did not get their fair share. I would like forward to do thatting. Thank you very much. Thank you, senator. Senator rounds. Thank you, mr. Chairman. And ms. Mcmahon, i appreciated the time that you spent in my office as well and a lot of the discussion between us had the to do with the size of the federal government and the amount of the Regulatory Overreach that i u personally feel has been involved not just over the Previous Administration, but over a series of administrations. As you may have heard though is since 2008, more than 25,000 regulations have been administered under the Obama Administration, and many find that the new impact have reached 727 billion and require 460 million new hours of papererwork. That is on top of Compliance Costs of nearly, nearly 2 trillion for all federal regulations, and more than 11 of the gdp. The sbas office of advocacy is a truly important voice for standing up of the Small Businesses against the aring arulations and the burdens against the regulations and the burdens they would pose. The aus of office of advocacy h inform Small Businesses about the reforms. And i have already shared some of the concerns of the capabili capabilities of this particular office of advocacy, and i would like to go to specifically what happened in the last year where the office of advocacy stepped in on in fact many family farms and ranches that would have been impacted by the epas waters of the u. S. , the wotus rule that senator earn hohoff and post identified earlier, as you may recall from our meeting the Small Business administration of advocacy sent a letter which i would like to mr. Chairman submit for the record today. They sent this october 21st, 2014, they criticized the wotus rule and actually recommended that the entire rule be withdrawn. Now, that was apparently ignored. The rule continued forward. I would like to know if you are confirmed as the stratd administrator of the sba would you be willing to recommend that this rule be withdrawn and remind the administrator of the epa what it has done to our Small Businesses and farmers alike. Thank you, i would like to look forward to working with you with senator earnst, when i met with her if a Small Business in her state wanted to expand it would have to get federal approve to do that. I clearly believe thats an over reach. I would look forward to working with you to not burden someones. If wotus is not withdrawn would you consider reissuing that letter through the Office Similar to the way it was done last time but this time addressing it to the new director or the new administrator of the Environmental Protection agency under the new administration . I would like to find the most effective way to put teeth in that office of advocacy and if thats one of the ways to do that i would like to work with you to see if we could make that happen. I can take that as an almost yes. Im looking forward to working with you on that. All right. Let me move on. Mrs. Mcmahon under the Obama Administration fees were waived for a number of qualifying seven a loans including the up front onetime guarantee fees oand on going loans for fiscal years 2014, 15 and 16, if you are confirmed as administrator would you consider looking at the continuation of these waivers . I would like to make sure that we are making it as easy as possible to get these loans and to help our Small Businesses and would like to take a really strong look at what did he accomplish by that, houcw long s it in affect, did we get feedback so we could see what the merits of that are . Thank you. Senator rono . Thank you mr. Chairman. Its good to see you, thank you for the time that we spent together. I first of all want to commend you for the comments that you made regarding President Trumps comments about women and i asked you to be a strong voice for women and should you be the confirmed administrator will you commit to preserving the programs and funding that exists to pro mote women and minority entrepreneurship to improve these programs . I definitely want to be a strong advocate for women, yes, our Small Business and veterans and want to work with the committee and with members of congress to make sure that we have the right regular gas stations regulations to help our businesses grow. Entrepreneurs having been one yourself, minority owned businesses and veterans, those are groups im particularly focused on to make sure they have the support from the sba they should get. We heard a lot from access to capital. Have you identified the specific factors that lead to difficulty in accessing capital . Because unless you know what the causes are, we cant make the appropriate changes, so since access to capital has been mentioned by you a number of times, have you i. D. Ed those causes and what you would do about them as sba administrator . Thank you for your question. Let me share a story with you when i was running for the senate in connecticut. There was a company that was in the rural area up in the North Eastern corner of connecticut we call it the quiet company, it was an entrepreneur that made grips that kind of look like springs and made by hand. They were mostly women making these particular grips and springs, and he had built his business from two or three people and added people gotten loans from his community bank, bridge loans when he was a little bit cash shy and time to expand and now he had work orderers and new business coming in but he need today add ed to his facility. The banker told him the problem is your asset rich but cash poor and he said i totally get that because if i had the cash i wouldnt be here to need to get through this time and what his banker told him was that in the past ive been able to loan you this money but today under the new Regulatory Environment that we find ourselves in you no longer qualify as you did before. And you would have to overcollateralize in order for me now to make the loan to you, that meant he had to put up all his assets, his house and other assets in order to collateralize a much smaller loan, while entrepreneurs are very happy to take managed risks, that was just simply too much so he did not expand and he didnt grow his business, didnt hire those next people and thats an example of a Regulatory Environment i think that does not allow our businesses to grow. Well let me note that ive heard those comments from Small Businesses also in my state and i visit with a lot of them but some resulted from the financial collapse and the under regulation of the National Services industry on wall street so theres usually a cause and affect and im with you in trying to resolve some of those issues for Small Businesses but there was a reason that the collateral rules changed because there were all these uncollateralized loans that led to the collapse. We hear a lot about overregulation, when i talk with my Small Businesses and they say it it is easy enough to say were in a unless we identify them appropriately we can talk about overregulation, a farmer could ship his cut flowers but for various reasons he couldnt ship the whole flowers, these were all clean flowers all of that, and we worked to change that, and so i would like to ask you whether when we actually move to improve the Regulatory Environment that you would ask those very specific kind of questions so that we get to the heart of whatever the regulation is that is causing them problems as opposed to some kind of oh, yeah, were overregulated that doesnt take us very far in my opinion. Thank you for that comment too and i dont know how you can change regulation until you identify them. Good. We have to know the positive and negative impact to change them or enhance them and im committed to doing that for sure. Thank you and i know my time s is up, but im glad one of the first things you would look at is Disaster Relief, because with sba being on the ground and all of our states have experienced that and i was pleasantly surprised by your response to that question. Thank you. Senator scott. Thank you mr. Chairman. Thank you for being here and your willingness to serve. According to the 2016nfib survey of small owners businesses listed, they listed unreasonable regulations, tax complexity, Economic Uncertainty located qualified employees as some top concerns, as a Business Owner i know you can identify with many concerns and if youre confirmed how will your experience play a role when determining if the sba can alleviate some of the concerns of Small Business owners . Thank you very much, senator. Having walked in the shoes of Small Business owners, i understand how difficult it is when you are in a cash flow business and not a bricks and mortar business, it is very difficult to have access to capital and get loans when you really have no collateral against that except your own cash flow, so i know that there are a lot of startups that face those kind of issues in getting capital. So i know how to talk to them a little bit about that. I know how to talk about Cash Management and Advice Companies once you can make a little profit put it away because when you need credit you cant get it. Its really important advice but to manage your cash very, very carefully because cash flow is really a great part of success an under capitalization is why Companies Fail so walking in those shoes i understand that. You mentioned the cash flow and certainly looking for qualified local employees i assume you have had some success with successful employees like tr hhh and glad that was received well, i grew up in the south and watched wwe and mba, he turned pretty red. One of the challenges is how to align the jobs in the marketplace with the skills in the marketplace . I was a Small Business owner for 20 years or so, and i will tell you that finding the right talent in the right market is a very difficult task i think it was 64 of new jobs are being created in Small Businesses so the reality of it is in places like colorado that need one type of employee with a skill set that matches in colorado and South Carolina the number one Tourist Destination in the world which you should come visit very soon, the reality of it is our tourism drives a lot of our entrepreneurship, how do we align the opportunities and access to jobs with those folks looking for those jobs in that marketplace . Thank you, and maybe a little bit different twist on that as well as i continued to say when i was come paam pain campaig learned a lot, there werent as much a shortage of jobs as there were trained people for those jobs and i think we have to refocus how we are looking at the jobs market sitting on the board of trustees at sacred heart i took a look at some of the Educational Programs we have and asked are we reaching out to our corporations an companies that are surrounding our university to understand what kind of shifts or changes do we need to make in order to fulfill that employment string . And i think were starting to be a little bit more successful in that but we have a long ways to go but thats one of the things that i really sort of committed to even before i was asked to do this, but ill like to continue to make sure we are training our folks for the jobs that are there. I have about 30 seconds left, mr. Chairman. Just close with a comment. I hope that as our new head of the sba that you will look for ways to create synergy within government perhaps Technical Schools on the local level. Doesnt matter what level of government that you will look for ways that will create synergy in lines and skills in the marketplace where those jobs are available, i think thats a great place for the sba to perhaps take a unique perspective in on their mission an find ways to improve the outcome of the average person who starts in a difficult place and finds entrepreneurship as a apart forward. Thank you. Senator coons. Thank you, mr. Chairman, Ranking Members, mrs. Mcmahon. I appreciate sharing stories of entrepreneurship and job growth and thrilled to continue to have that relationship. The key role in the sba helping Small Businesses grow jobs and the importance of capital, mentoring programs of score, like the Manufacturing Partnership which can help Small Businesses to grow, my home state of delaware which i invited you to visit not to be out done by senator scott. We have a number of businesses that helped them grow in their early stages so i think you will see on both sides of the aisle a knowledge of and enthusiasm that sba has had on our state and work very well with my office and i love doing small town visits where we will go up an down the maine street and see whether its 7a or 504 to see the impacts that the sba can have, using trait marks and licensing trademarks and licensing, i talked about my passion for patents and making sure that Small Businesses know how to protect and educate, do you think is importat is import protect or develop patents and is that something that we can work on together . It was such a large part of wwe, and from the beginning we wanted to make sure at wwe, sometimes you can bring a little bit of knowledge and be dangerous or you have enough knowledge and know you have to go ask somebody with expertise and it was very important as the company developed that we protected, copy righted the television shows, music programs or our magazine works, that reregistered trademarks, you have invested so much money to grow and develop that product or that intellectual property but if you dont protect it and then someone else takes it away from you you dont have a leg to stand on because you didnt defend your own property so its really important to make sure that young businesses understand the value of what they create and that they need to protect that. And you have to expend some money to do it but in the long run you are protecting your investment. I look forward to working with you on that as the lead democratic appropriator on the subcommittee that funds the sba we also talked about how this is an area of general broad agreement in a bipartisan agreement in what otherwise is a contentious subcommittee and i think you were introduced positively by two gentlemen you ran against, in appropriations its my hope that we will Work Together on the 7a program to find the right balance for the needed programs to avoid subsidy, let me mention two other things, we worked on extending the tax credit to help innovative Startups Companies that use technology and invas n innovation to grow quickly, and im wondering if you can work more for businesses that are centered in that, and to advocate for the Score Program something launched in delaware by dupont. Yes, sir, we talked about that. Something that Small Businesses really need to get someone relevant were skills, and i wonder if you could see your way supporting score and spending your time as sba administrator if confirmed . Thank you very much. Statistics show whether its womenowned biusinesses, or whatever it is, that you are more successful with mentors because you have somebody who can give you advice and especially under score and especially when we have executives that are very seasoned and experienced professionals and to have that as a resource is really fantastic and would like to see more and more mentoring because we will have more businesses successful. I would love to work with you in more detail with that in a future. Thank you again today im grateful that you have been w willing to step up. Thank you, its so good to be with you mrs. Mcmahon to have someone of your caliber and experience. Thank you. Willing to put yourself forward around serve in this capacity. One of the advantages to be lower on the preverbable totem pole here, one of the disadvantages is i have to rework my questions when those questions were one that i intend today a ed to ask, by way of background i come from a Small Business family as well. My dad has grown a commercial hvac distributorship over the years and now my brother has taken over that business and i understand the unique challenges, unique opportunities associated with Small Businesses. This town tends to be rigged often times against the little guy. Or woman as it were. On account of Regulatory Burdens, sometimes foisted with great deliberation by larger businesses to crowd out competition from upstarts. Our tax code is another example. The Small Business administration and it has been mentioned many time here as an opportunity perhaps unrealized to its full extent to advocate on behalf of Small Businesses in each through the office of advocacy, and you already indicated thats going to be a real point of emphasis on your part. The regulatory flexibility act of 1980 tasks this with monitoring compliance with the act in assisting regulatory agencies during all stages of rule making development to mitigate the potential adverse impact of rules on small entities, bla, bla, bla, so that seems like a lot of work. This is comparatively speaking a Small Department when you compare it to the department of defense and whatnot, so i would be very interested say 180 days into your service to get feedback to this committee, to my office in particular about what you have learned with respect to the office of advocacy, how its operations might be improved. If there are additional authorities required to advocate on behalf of our nations Small Businesses and young firms that would be instructive i think to all of us do i have that commitment to provide that retire should you become our next head of the department . I look very forward to reporting back to all of the members of committee the things that ive found i think throughout sba where i have found issues or problems that i need your help and guidance and i hope that you would not hesitate to reach out to me to say look, these are some things i really want you to take a look at because im going to be drinking from a fire hose for a while, continuing to and going to be a lot for me to absorb and i would like to be the most effective at it that i can. Will you make a effort. Yes i will. Within 180 days . I will get back to you as soon as i can. Fair enough. In affect of avoiding duplication can i get a commitment from you to work with streamlining . I definitely want to streamline and where we need to add we need to add and i look forward to working with everyone on the committee doing that. And lastly in my great state of indiana we have stumbled on some unique approaches to assisting our Small Business which might be replicated by other states, some have their own examples to put forward, i think there might be an effective clearinghouse of best practicing emerging from the local level, or state level perhaps even best practices that weve seen in other countries, so with your commitment to work with me on that effort perhaps well be able to assist our small biusinesses, can i get yor commitment to that opportunity as well . Yes, im Firm Believer in Small Businesses, and looking at some best practices that need to be changed or need to be removed. Thank you very much. Senator young. And we will go to senator marquee. Thank you. Mrs. Mcmahon, i raised this issue of Net Neutrality with you and the reason i did is that its not really understood that 68 goes to Small Businesses an one of your counterparts over at the federal Communications Commissions the new chairman designate is talking about repealing those rules which makes it difficult for the new startups, the business model, Venture Capital money flows that way an again we have that next generation of startups are you familiar with that Net Neutrality of issue and what is your kind of general philosophy towards those areas of Economic Development in the Small Business area in our country . Thank you very much senator. I think yesterday when you and i spoke about it i said thank you for informing about this and educating me more about this. I have not dealt with Net Neutrality in any of the bi businesses ive been involved in i understand from your concern yesterday that we dont want any restriks on access restricti the access of the internet because it can impede Small Businesses and i look forward to learning more about that and how it can be used effectively. Thank you. Sbir since the program was created in 1982, massachusetts Small Companies received 20,000 Small Business grants and 2,300 new firms were created out of those grants creating tens of thousands of new jobs in our state and we very much rely on sbir grants as part of our long term Business Planning, senator shaheen and i and others have been advocating to make this a Permanent Program. Have you had a chance to look at sbir and what would you think about the prospects of your support for making it a Permanent Program . Ive just gun begun to familiarize myself with it and talked with many senators who spoke and how important it has been in Small Businesses and technology and startups and what a large pro portion they are. Now Small Businesses especially in your state. So i want to delve more into that and best utilize sbir to enhance it lets do that, if we want to make it permanent i want to know why that is beneficial and learn from you and Ranking Member shaheen and others about that. Climate change is real, its happening, we see it along the coastlines especially of our country and over an over again fema and the sba have had to respond in order to give help to louisiana affected by historic flooding or along the northeast with historic storms that hit our coastlines and in each instance fema and the sba have responded to these Natural Disasters have you looked at what the issue of that impact is and what planning sba might have to make in order to deal with these changes conditions especially its impact on Small Businesses . I learned from you yesterday about the warming of the waters, massachusetts up to maine and around the cape cod area. The fastest warming body of water in the world. And i found that a fascinating statistic an you indicated to me how it is driving the cod north, lobsters north and so the fishery industry there is really being impacted by that climate change. Those are very real statistics that i want to learn more about and to know not only as it relates tom massachusetts but where else it can play a role. And after the tsarnaev brothers attacked, the sba stepped up to help Small Businesses that they could recover, so another area thats not always understood whether its natural or man made and hopefully under your leadership we can so a conindicatitinuatio that. Thank you for stepping forward and your sacrifices, and i thank you for your sack friri, and i want to say about your daughter and soninlaw i want to say your daughter is much more fierce than your soninlaw. Thats sexist. Sure. Can give you mean hip toss. I believe that. In fiscal year 2015 we received about 15 million in sba loans with around 500,000 of that i was blown away as women and particularly of minority are starting businesses and i wonder if you support a higher cap to make additional loans in fiscal year 2017 and 2018 . First of all are the loans going where we think theyre going and have the results we want to see . I dont have a handle yet on whether or not the metrics in place to make sure we are serving more and more our veterans, native americans, minorities but if the loans we are making effective and if so, lets create it . I appreciate that and the traditional indices that banks used something i learned by keva they have loan repayment rates that beat and something that i think the sba should be looking at for other ways to get money into the system. A lot of folks who were in prison for nonviolent drug use one of our last two or three president s admitted to doing, they come out in society, wouldnt be able to get food stamps, housing, or pell grants, one was for them to be able to get loans from the sba, it was a remarkable change and some of our greatest entrepreneurs are people who made mistakes in the past i want to get your commitment that thats something to look forward to in the future. I look forward to looking into it. Most americans one out of ten is violating drug laws and unfortunately those are disproportionate especially on minorities, no difference twe s between blacks and whites, but four times more likely in order to compete economically and your attention to continuing that program would be something really helpful. Theres been a lot of talk about the sba and transparency. I just want to make sure youre committed to helping us have transparency when it comes to loans so we have better metrics and population as it relates here. I appreciate that. Really quickly i have a lot of problems with the regulations as well, its something i think theres a lot of opportunities for people to work on both sides of the aisle. For example the number one employer in mamerica if you include contractors is the federal government, it creates tremendous jobs but navigating that bizzen titine labyrinth, thats been given 100s of millions dollars given to eme l emerging managers, minorities often outperform the big folks but because of the regulations its hard for them to compete, small tech firms can often provide Greater Service cant even compete for government grants because the way its prom promulgated is way too difficult. In general looking inward at the way we do our process es to mae space to compete for larger contracts or break down the large contracts into smaller bite sized opportunities we will help to fuel our economy in a way, its something that all these other cabinet bmembers wh pushed billions of dollars to make a difference to make a majorly impactful difference and get Better Service for their dollars, is that something that you will be focused on . I absolutely look forward to having that access to compete. Senator kennedy. Thank you. I enjoyed our visit in my office. I appreciate your time. I think you will be a great addition to mr. Trumps team. Thank you. Ive just got a couple of questions. Do you understand how hard it is to start or expand the Small Business in America Today . Yes, sir. I have had that experience. I know very well what it takes. Senator booker talked about this but lets start with the regulation, here is what Small Business people tell me every day. They dont complain about specific rules or paying their fair share, this is what they tell me, they tell me we need simpler rules, we need fewer rules, quicker decisions by the bureaucracy, we need government workers who will answer the phone, we need government websites that a normal person can navigate. Thats all theyre asking for. Now, its been my experience and ive been in america longer than ive been in washington. Ive been a senator for three weeks. You cant be for jobs if youre against business and business women and business men need five things, low taxes, they need reasonable regulation, they need capital, they need decent infrastructure and they need a skilled work force. Now i realize sba cant provide all those, but tell me how at sba youre going to help Small Business women and Small Business men get those things . Well for one thing thank you very much senator kennedy and i too enjoyed our visit. I think a lot of what you have talked about if i were fortunate enough to be confirmed. You will be. Thank you. Did you hear that . Okay. I think its really important that we do mentor these Small Businesses. They a lot of times someone has a wonderful idea, this is my business, this is what i want to do, im going to come in and show you and they come in with sort of an abstract Business Plan and even if you help them get that Business Plan right and all the ts crossed and the is dotted you have to say its really not a good idea, doesnt have enough legs to really succeed and i dont think theres not that kind of mentoring, theres lower taxes, regulations but sometimes you dont have the basic understanding of what its going to take to have a successful business and there needs to be that aspect of mentoring as well and i think that will help us grow more quality businesses that do have the opportunity to succeed. Well, lots of Small Businesses fail. I understand that, but what i think what is happening in our country is a lot of really smart people are just afraid to try. They are afraid of their chances of success, they just think there are none. They just start looking at the different permits and regulations and rules and on top of that you have to have the capital and many people have to put a second mortgage on their home and its just insurmountable and here is what i hope you will do mrs. Mcmahon because i think you are very qualified for the position. Thank you. And i think the president has chosen well and im familiar with what sba does and i know you are too but i hope you will go beyond and be the advocate for the Small Business administration, in my state 90 of jobs are created by Small Business men and women that are taking a risk, sometimes they fail but when they stop trying at least in my part of america, were in real trouble so i hope you will take on that role. If theres something i can know, let me know, good luck. Thank you. I dont think i can be an advocate for sba if i were not an advocate for Small Business. I think they are one in the same. Thank you. Thank you senator kenny and senator shaheen, were back to you. Thank you, mr. Chairman and i only have two questions and i know that we may be waiting on one or two other people, but as youre aware the Small Business administration is a relatively small investment in this economy. If you look at how it compares to many other agencies within the federal government, their budget is not one of the largest, lets just put it that way, and yet, as we have heard from all the members of this committee Small Businesses are very important to this countrys economy to job growth and we need to do what we can to support them. Its particularly true in Rural America i think New Hampshire, doesnt have very many large cities, we are mostly a rural state and much of america is also. And, when there are cuts to the sba that has inordinate impact on Rural America because one of the places that they can get support as you have heard is from the sba for mentoring for guidance on issues that come up with their businesses, for loans, so its very significant. And i want to hear from you that you will be an advocate for the budget of the Small Business administration because what we saw in the last Republican Administration is that they cut sbas budget by about 32 . So, can you reassure me that you will do everything you can to advocate for sba and the Current Administration . Absolutely, i want to make sure that we have the right budget to accomplish what we need to accomplish. And it may be that if i have an opportunity and confirmed if im looking at one aspect of expenditure to say i can best take some of these dollars and move it over here, i think those are the right way to look at our budget and make sure we are asking for the right kind of appropriation but lets lay out our programs, here is what we really want to accomplish and here is what it is going to take, when i was ceo and it was budget time we went back to zero based budgeting, thats a pretty sobering experience, i think theres a peeling back of the budget and where those dollars are being spent and if theyre being spent effectively. My commitment to this commit will be that i will be an advocate to make sure that sba runs effectively and efficiently. Thank you i appreciate that and effectiveness is obviously a goal we all share. With that in mind i wanted to call your attention to what was reported this week that the new administration is preparing budget cuts based on a blueprint published by the Heritage Foundation because it endorsed cutting funding for several programs i think are very important to Small Business, one is the sbir program, an we have heard from a variety of members attesting to the importance of that program, we have seen it in New Hampshire in terms of providing invasion to the department of defense in fact did a hearing before the Armed Services committee we heard from experts that the most effective existing program to help our military get the innovation they need is the Small Business infli Innovation Research program, so i would like to look carefully about cutting that, the other area that Heritage Foundation blueprint talks about cutting is sbas you expressed it when we discussed it and been raised by a number of members. I would have severe reservations about cutting sbas roll in Disaster Assistance and finally support for International Trade which again for so many Small Businesses having access to International Markets can make the difference between growing, succeeding an failing especially when times are tough so i would urge you to take a hard look at some of those issues and advocate for whats in the best interest of your Small Businesses. Thank you. Thank you very much senator shaheen and finally we are going to turn it to senator rubio, and he will be the last this is a momentous occasion because it is not very often that you get questioned by every Single Member of the committee. Im honored then. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Ive known mrs. Mcmahon, we have a background and ive had time to talk to my office and i will address one issue thats particularly important to the state of florida theres been an impact on florida by the zika virus, what i think has become a new disaster is the impact of a pandemic, this happened where the cdc was basically telling people do not visit if youre pregnant certain geographic areas if youre in a community. I dont need to tell you that was not good for business and while people think it impacts the big hotels, nightclubs and it does, but down the chain to the uber drivers to the florists that the wedding got cancelled and so one of the things that we discussed was an effort i made last year that the Previous Administration was open toot opening up to address hardships that Small Businesses faith during Public Health crisis, so i would ask is that something you would be open to exploring and looking into, i know you would have to look into the cost and in Disaster Relief its hard to predict but i hope i can encourage you to be open minded about because while i dont think were going to have many of these, theres nothing to say it couldnt happen again and our ability to help Small Businesses that are faffected by a pandemi like the zika virus, and international travel, i hope you will be open minded and work with us on achieving that because i think we could unfortunately see that play out in the future. I have not had a chance to look into that but i certainly will have an open mind and look forward with working with you on that. I would love you to come florida i know everybody wants you to come to their state in the winter . Yes, we would try sometime in february or march, but ive always pointed people to how dynam dynamic people are in entrepreneurship, in come of the areas where i come from, the cuban community, eighth street, but literally eight out of the ten of the store fronts are family owned and Small Businesses and ive heard so many people say that truly is the backbone of our country and they dont get the headlines but you could have the greatest product in the world and these things we dont think about challenges to a Small Business but when they decide to expand the roads its great for the future but for the next a year and a half customers think its difficult to get in and out and its devastating for the Small Businesses, but not only the loans that the sba provides its important to be an advocate whether its regulations, taxes or things of this nature i think Small Business needs advocates who are constant watchdogs for any level of government that has a dispro portion nnatportionnae. I encourage you to come, central business, we have Small Business everywhere in our state and we would be excited to host you there and again i thank you for your willingness to serve our country i really am grateful for the opportunity that we have had to talk and the nomination process isnt always a pleasant experience so im glad that it sounds like this meeting has gone well and look forward to you getting confirmed very soon. An equally attractive offer. The one to hawaii . However i was invited to alaska and north dakota . With that were going to conclude the hearing, and thank you so much mrs. Mcmahon for your willingness to serve, senator shaheen wanted me to express her thanks for your willingness to serve, you can see we have a really Diverse Group of senators with ideas bau thats what makes america great, and senator shaheen and i have been talking about trying to move this as quickly as possible, we feel very good about getting you confirmed but obvious live its not over till its over to were going to try to move this next week, we are going to leave the record open for until close of biusiness, wednesday january 25th and open for a week to submit letters and other relevant materials so with that thank you, thank you for your families and being so supportive and being here with us today and with that our committee is adjourned. And we will continue to have coverage of all cabinet cov confirmation hearings, we will show you the hearings each night in our primetime schedule. The annual march rally for life, Kellyanne Conway will address, congressman chris smith will address, you can listen on the cspan radio app. We go live now to springfield, illinois for illinois governor Bruce Rauners third state of the state address joining at the General Assembly at the state capital. Today i rise to open for taking a moment for officer from the blooming dadale police