Today, Congressman Harold “Hal” Rogers voted in favor of the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act, which will help small businesses and start-up companies more easily obtain invest funds.  While small businesses make up 60% of all new jobs in this country, over the last three years, the U.S. has experienced a 23% decline in the number of small business startups. The JOBS Act is a bipartisan package of six bills that seeks to remove regulatory barriers in the financial sector in order to make it easier for start-ups, innovators, and small businesses to grow and go public.  The House passed the measure 390-23, and the JOBS Act now awaits consideration by the Senate.

“Our region is full of innovators and entrepreneurs with great ideas, at home businesses, and growing high-tech capabilities, but access to basic start-up funds often stands in the way of getting a concept or a business off the drawing board,” said Rogers.  “The JOBS Act aims to remove anti-growth barriers that prevent Kentuckians from taking a risk on a new business or expanding to hire more workers.  Investing in Kentucky small businesses, forward-leaning enterprises, and family farms is critical to growing our economy and getting folks back to work.”

The JOBS Act seeks to restore economic confidence by ensuring that the United States remains a country of opportunity where businesses flourish without the risk of being stifled by costly regulations. This package contains various measures to help increase capital formation, spur the growth of startups, and pave the way for more small-scale businesses to create jobs. These measures include removing barriers for small businesses to go public, enabling entrepreneurs to pool investments from smaller investors, increasing the number of shareholders permitted to invest in a community bank, and removing a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) regulatory ban on using advertisements to solicit investors. Three key components of the JOBS Act were already approved by the House of Representatives in 2011 and supported by Congressman Rogers. 

Congressman Rogers has been committed to serving small businesses and boosting economic growth in Kentucky’s 5^th Congressional District since 1981. Through establishing organizations such as the Center for Rural Development and the Southern Kentucky Economic Development Corporation (SKED), Congressman Rogers has helped to provide leadership that stimulates innovative and sustainable economic development solutions and a better way of life in Southern and Eastern Kentucky. For more information visit www.halrogers.house.gov.

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