The American Jobs Act, which provides tax cuts for small
businesses so they can hire and grow, invests in rebuilding and modernizing
America, creates ways for Americans searching for jobs, and gives tax reliefs
for families was just recently passed by the House of Representatives. This
bi-partisan bill, predicted to be very popular between both sides of the aisle
has since derailed in the Senate.
But why?
Well, for once, politicians decided to actually read the
bill. Yes, you heard it correctly; they read the proposed piece of legislation!
When they read, they found that some provisions that
depending on your point of view, are either rightly opening up the markets
during a time when regulation bogs down start-ups of new businesses or
deregulates the market for big, greedy corporations and banks to take advantage
of.
For one, the bill allows “emerging
growth companies” (companies making less than $1 billion in revenue…yes that’s
right start-ups with profits under 1 billion) to bypass internal audits and
recording regulations. It also reduces regulations on underwritings using
public revenue to fund research, and it limits online “crowdfunding”.
Now, I understand that America has witnessed an 80% decrease of small companies going public
and that local businesses have taken a tough toll since the 2007-2009 recession. And
I realize that it is necessary to loosen regulations and credit entrepreneurs
tax breaks so that they can start-up their own business.
After all that is what the United States is all about…a land
where dreamers think the streets are paved with gold…rags to riches…you know,
the American Dream.
Wrong.
In today’s world, if banks and big corporations are not
regulated, the lenders’ corrupt desire for greed will lead to riskier business,
and if banks go under, then the borrowers cannot be lent money, and this leads
to firms going out of business, a period of deleveraging, and a recessionary
cycle. I agree, yes, regulations can sometimes “crowd-out” private investment.
But do I think that these “small businesses” (under 1 BILLION in revenue)
should be allowed to bypass precautionary measures auditing their funding?
Absolutely not!
Regulations were put into place to keep practices fair after
the 2007-2009 collapse of the housing market and investment banks. Think about
when Congress signed the Commodities Futures Modernization Act in 2000, which
banned regulation on derivatives and led to unsupervised market activity. With
credit default swaps, collateralized debt obligations, and credit default swaps
on collateralized debt obligations, lenders participated in riskier moves due
to higher interest rates and the chance to make tremendous amounts of money. These
lenders promised to pay investors back if their CDOs or CDSs went bad, however,
due to the lack of recording regulation, investment banks did not put money
aside to cover losses. In 2008, the market for CDOs collapsed, which was
followed by the collapse of investment banks and ultimately led to the mess we
are trying to work our way out of today.
The markets need to be opened up, and incentives should be
given, but deregulation of pertinent regulations that safeguard consumers and
investors of corrupt auditing is not the answer. I suggest that the Senate make
some major revisions before it goes to President Obama’s desk to sign.