Clinton talks small business issues on second day of Iowa trip

NORWALK - Saying her campaign wants to 'figure out how we're going to jump-start small business again,” Hillary Clinton spent a portion of her second day in Iowa chatting with a handful of small business owners at a produce distributor.

Clinton, a former U.S. Secretary of State, U.S. senator and first lady, announced on Sunday that she is seeking the Democratic nomination for president in 2016. She promptly hopped in a van and headed for Iowa for a two-day visit.

On Wednesday, Clinton heard concerns from five Iowa small business owners about high taxes, rising health insurance costs and workforce issues related to a skills gap and immigration laws.

The roundtable discussion was held at Capital City Fruit, a produce distributor that expanded and relocated from Des Moines to Norwalk in 2012. For roughly an hour, Clinton engaged the business owners in the facility's warehouse as dozens of reporters watched.

Brendan Comito, chief operating officer of Capital City Fruit, told Clinton his company recently was told its health insurance premiums would increase 18 percent over the previous year. Comito said the company was able to negotiate the increase down to 13 percent.

Katie Stocking, owner of a Des Moines web advertising firm, said despite her company's success, high taxes sometimes prevent her from adding staff, forcing her to choose between working longer hours or staying home with family.

Bryce Smith, a 23-year-old owner of a bowling alley and restaurant in Adel, said his student loan debt - roughly $40,000 - makes it difficult to grow his business.

'Slowly, over time, it's become more difficult, more expensive, more red tape, unnecessary regulation that has really put a damper (on small business growth),” Clinton said. 'And then that was unfortunately exacerbated greatly by the effects of the Great Recession where a lot banks stopped lending.”

Clinton mostly listened to and asked a few questions of the business owners. She did not take questions from reporters or delve deep into policy, but she did state her support for finding ways to generate more skilled workers, making college more affordable and reducing student debt, providing more robust work benefits for new parents, immigration reform, stronger laws to enforce equal pay for women and creating balanced tax incentive programs for small and large businesses.

'In this campaign, I will be offering specific ideas about how to help small businesses, how to jump-start them, grow them,” Clinton said.

She later added, 'I'll have a lot more to say about this as the campaign goes forward. But before I roll out my policies, I want to hear from people who are on the front lines, in this case small business, and hear directly from you so that your experiences and ideas can be embedded in what I'm proposing not just for Iowa but for the entire country.”

Clinton heard from the business owners both good news and bad news on health care.

Comito said rising premiums prevent his business from expanding other benefits.

'I'm really concerned that going forward our employees won't be able to afford it,” Comito said. 'It's unfortunate that health care is making us make decisions that are not business-based.”

But two of the business owners also lauded the piece of the federal health care law that prevents insurers from denying customers with pre-existing conditions.

Smith's wife has epilepsy, and Jennifer Hansen, who owns a boutique in Des Moines, is a breast cancer survivor.

Because of her illness, the potential repeal of the health care law, which many Republicans call for, is something 'I lose sleep about,” she said.

Clinton said allowing insurance companies to sell across state lines is 'something we should look at.” That proposal has been made by many Republican lawmakers offering alternatives to the federal health care law.

Comito said the biggest obstacle his business faces is a thin workforce. He said Capital City Fruit would benefit from more potential employees with the necessary skills and new immigration laws that allow immigrants living in the country illegally to obtain work visas or temporary permits.

Comito said immigration reform has been stalled and poisoned by politics.

'It's a political thing. If the four of us got at the table and sat down to figure it out, we could figure it out, probably in what, 20 minutes? But you get the politicians, and they start breaking off into groups, and they fight about it and nothing gets done,” Comito said. 'Maybe we should be the ones writing the legislation.”

Clinton went from Norwalk to the Iowa Capitol in Des Moines, where she met with Democratic state legislators.

Multiple Statehouse Democrats agreed Clinton's message was well-received.

'What she had to say just rang home totally with me: with education, with workforce, and getting the money out of politics, so many of these issues we're trying to move forward on,” said Iowa Rep. Sharon Steckman, D-Mason City. 'I was very impressed with what she had to say. …

'We've got a long ways to go, but I'm very impressed.”

Iowa Senate President Pam Jochum, D-Dubuque, also was impressed and said she expects to endorse Clinton, because U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts has said she will not run.

'(Clinton) is my candidate, for sure,” Jochum said. 'Right now, I would say yes.”

Clinton started her day with a stop at a coffee shop in Marshalltown.

On Tuesday, Clinton spoke with educational leaders and students at Kirkwood Community College's regional center in Monticello.

Republicans responded to Clinton's visit with statements challenging her trustworthiness in regard to her use of private email while serving as secretary of state and the deletion of those emails.

'Hillary Clinton's blatant hypocrisy, staged photo-ops, and claims of being dead-broke only further prove how out-of-touch she is with everyday Americans,” Republican National Committee spokesman Fred Brown said in a statement. 'If Clinton truly cared about Iowans, she would answer their serious questions regarding her secret email server scandal.”

Near the conclusion of Wednesday's event in Norwalk, Clinton suggested she intends to campaign hard in Iowa when she asked Smith about his bowling alley.

'When are you open?” Clinton asked. 'I'm going to be in Iowa a lot.”