Yesterday the U.S. Senate voted to start debate on the Small Business Jobs Act with a 61-37 cloture vote. GOP Senators George Voinovich and George Lemieux joined all the Democrats and Independents in the successful vote. Voinovich and Lemieux, about whom I have previously blogged, had voted earlier for the $30 billion Lending Fund for community banks to be included in the bill.
Economists predict that the Lending Fund will result in $300 billion in small business loans from the community banks.
This crucial cloture vote came after a full-blown Capitol press conference at which I spoke yesterday morning. If you want to check out my portion of the press conference, here is the video, below.
The Senate is expected to pass the Small Business Jobs Act this week. Then it will go back to the House, which had already passed a version of the bill. If the differences can be reconciled quickly, we might even see President Obama sign the bill next week.
Oh, but the press conference was only the start of my day. I and representatives from other organizations with the American Sustainable Business Council also had meetings with members of Congress and staff. I finally had to run out of a meeting with Rep. Steve Kagan of Wisconsin, chair of the Congressional Business Owners’ Caucus, to get to my 7 p.m. flight.
It really was a great day for small businesses.