Zitat des Tages von Karen Mills:
This has always been a small agency with a big mission. But these days, especially, we have to stand up every day, deliver value into the hands of small-business owners and get taxpayers the biggest bang for their buck so that we can help these job creators do what they need to do.
After four years as Administrator of the SBA, I have let President Obama know that I will not be staying for a second term. I will stay on until my successor is confirmed to ensure a smooth and seamless transition.
We are very much engaged across the government, very much engaged in streamlining and simplifying our activities with borrowers and lenders, because that saves time and saves costs and we believe we can do that while maintaining the same or increased levels of oversight and risk management.
We were able in the Recovery Act to get a program where we increased our loan guarantees to 90 percent. Because we had that program, a bank wouldn't have to take that much risk.
The morale when I came in was not the best. It was because the agency had not been valued.
We spend a great deal of our energy making sure that small businesses have help in navigating to the outcomes that they want.
We see entrepreneurship and small businesses and supply chains as a critical part of the economic growth and competitiveness agenda.
Small businesses pay 18 percent more than big businesses for health care, the same health care, just because they're small and they have too small a pool of risk.
We are not going to be the agency where large businesses can masquerade as a small business and get a contract. We are closing down on fraud, waste and abuse.
We really accomplished what we set out to do with the Recovery Act programs, which was to fill the lending gap created by the crisis.
One of the most important things we hear is the S.B.A. needs to be ubiquitous. We do all these things, but people still don't know.
It's not government that creates jobs; it's small business. Our job is to make sure they have the access to capital, the access to contracting opportunities, and the help, advice and mentoring that they need to go out and be successful.
I recently had the opportunity to participate in Inc.'s first-ever 'Hire Power Awards' event in Washington, D.C. The event was a testament to the power of American entrepreneurship and the role that it plays in driving job creation and innovation in a wide array of industries.
Health care is the No. 1 concern of small businesses and the status quo is untenable.
We have to keep the momentum going in the economy. And we have to make sure that we give small businesses as much cash and liquidity as possible so they have the confidence to hire that next worker.
In October 2008, when the credit crunch hit, small businesses were really crushed by the lack of capital.
I haven't checked this out yet, but one of our guys told me we have a counselor within 45 minutes to an hour of most small businesses in this country. That's really powerful. I call it our bone structure.
Among our responsibilities is to make sure that 23 percent of all government contracts go to small businesses. That's about $150 billion annually, from all the government agencies.
Our economy creates and loses jobs every quarter in the millions. But of the net new jobs, the jobs come from small businesses: both small businesses on Main Street and many of the net new jobs come from high growth, high impact businesses that are located all across the country.
I saw the S.B.A. with just enormous potential, and that's what I told the president - this is really a jewel.
The S.B.A. does not lend directly to businesses, but instead backs loans to encourage banks to invest in small businesses as part of a nearly $90 billion portfolio.
