Helping Angels Lead Our Startups Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Mr. Speaker, there is a crisis right now in our country, and the fact of the matter is, we have more business concerns closing, going out of business, than being started. If you are concerned about economic growth, if you are concerned about growing payrolls, people being able to survive financially, you should be fixated on the fact that we have more businesses closing than opening.

Being someone who was here and spent a year of his life working on the JOBS Act, the individual bills, who was almost giddy that we had a bipartisan piece of success that so many of us were incredibly optimistic that was going to create some economic growth, and to be here today 4 years later dealing with something, I am sorry, that is almost absurd in the discussion: that the SEC has made it more restrictive today than it was before the JOBS Act.

Think about this: your university, your community college, your group brings together a number of little businesses that are trying to raise capital, and now under the interpretation that is coming at us, you are going to have to have security at the door to interview people, look at their financials. I mean, this is crazy.

Is the caterer going to have to get certified? How about the security person at the door, are they going to have to get secure?

Think about what this means and the absurdity that little businesses that were trying to capitalize can't even tell their story without making sure that the people in the room hearing it have met some sort of definition that the SEC has imposed after we all thought we did a piece of legislation that opened up this type of communication.

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