Coloradoan.com - Jobs Creation, Small-Business Lending Among Topics At Bennet Forum

News Article

By DAVID YOUNG

Northern Colorado business leaders converged Friday morning on the University of Denver to take part in roundtable discussions regarding the state of the economy and what legislators are calling a chance to rebuild.

The "Putting Colorado to Work Jobs Forum," which covered issues ranging from Colorado's infrastructure to the clean energy economy, was hosted by U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet in an effort to take ideas from Colorado's business community back to Washington D.C.

"Good ideas come from here to Washington, not the other way around," said Bennet who weighed the gravity of the moment, noting future generations will look back at this crucial point in history and rank it with the Civil War, Great Depression and the New Deal.

Bennet was explicit, having traveled the state talking with business owners and leaders, including Larimer and Weld, that jobs are the No. 1 issue on the table for Colorado this year.

"Small business is what's going to take us out of this freefall that we've been in and is going create roughly 80 percent of the new jobs as we come out of this recession" said Bennet, who surmised Larimer and Weld County residents are struggling to find and keep jobs. The failure of New Frontier Bank, which was closed by federal regulators, has only served to compound that issue.

Fort Collins' unemployment rate is around 6 percent compared to the state's unemployment rate of 6.9 percent and the nation's is around 10 percent.
Based on a diverse economy that includes agriculture, technology and CSU, Bennet said Northern Colorado residents are rolling up their sleeves for what promises to be a long-term battle.

While it will take months, perhaps even years to replace the jobs lost, Bennet is hopeful that by increasing businesses access to credit and changing the tax approach to give businesses more incentive to invest in their companies, that jobs will bounce back.

Some specific ideas Bennet cited to spur job growth are: change tax credits to allow small business to accelerate their investment in their capital, and taking some of Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, money paid back by larger banks and use it to wrap or guarantee loans for small businesses.

Source