NADCO testifies before House Small Business Committee

NADCO Chair, Jean Wojtowicz addressed the House Small Business Committee on June 10 and stressed that Congress should help small businesses recover from the recession, not hurt them by raising fees charged to borrowers of one of the country's most popular business financing programs. 

Created in 1981, the National Association of Development Companies (NADCO) is the trade association for America's Certified Development Companies (CDCs), like Evergreen Business Capital.

Wojtowicz told committee members that raising fees by 38.9 basis points, as proposed in the 2010 federal budget legislation, would negate the positive effects of fee reductions put in force by the SBA earlier this spring. She asked Congress to open up new sources of funding for small and high-tech companies with the greatest potential for creating new jobs.

She also said Congress should give local Certified Development Companies (CDCs) the freedom to perform recoveries and seek settlements from loan guarantors of 504 projects, rather than wait on the slower SBA process. She also said the SBA should not "shy away" from working with the lending programs of other federal credit-granting agencies such as the departments of Agriculture, Treasury and Housing and Urban Development.

"Cooperation would unleash the full power of the federal government to help restart the engine of small business productivity that creates 70 percent of all new jobs," said Wojtowicz.

"Working together, we must be more creative and flexible in serving the needs of new industries. We must tear down the walls of arcane, irrelevant and restrictive regulations or policies that create unnecessary barriers to reaching the industries of the 21st Century economy."

Wojtowicz went on to say, "The Congress and the Obama administration have worked hard to put more fixed assets and working capital in the hands of small businesses hard pressed by this recession. The stimulus legislation is beginning to favorably impact capital access and job creation. Our industry believes more should be done, and quickly, to help small businesses."

Visit the NADCO website, http://www.nadco.org/ [1], to watch Wojtowicz provide testimony. The full text of the statement she delivered is also available at the link below the video and here [2].