Grassley to meet with Obama on job creation

By James Q. Lynch

The Gazette

Sen. Chuck Grassley will meet with President Obama this morning to discuss efforts to create jobs.

Grassley, an Iowa Republican who will be part of a bipartisan House-Senate delegation to meeting with the president, is encouraging Obama to support three job-creation initiatives he has proposed.

“I'm focusing on small business because they create 70 percent of net new jobs and are a key element of our economic development and recovery,” Grassley said in a conference call this morning. “Yet they have been left out of every recovery effort so far whether it was the bank bailout or the auto bailout of the stimulus bill.”

His proposal would leave “more money in hands of small business owners so they can hire more, keep salaries up and make additional investments that lead to new jobs,” Grassley said.

“Everything possible needs to be done for Main Street instead of Wall Street,” he added.

Grassley has proposed comprehensive legislation to provide tax relief to small businesses in any jobs initiative that the White House and congressional leaders put forth.

To reduce unemployment, Grassley is asking Obama by creating new world markets for goods and services, including agricultural, made in the United States.

“Trade agreements in recent years have proven their value,” he said. “We've got agreements with countries like Chile, Morocco, Bahrain, Oman and the countries of Central America and the Dominican Republic. They've all turned trade deficits into surpluses. Trade surpluses were increased by trade agreements with Singapore, Australia and Peru. The same outcome could come from enacting trade agreements with Colombia, Panama and South Korea, which have been sidelined by this administration.”

His third initiative is a continued push to “continue pushing ahead on the development of renewable, clean-burning energy while also creating jobs throughout rural America.” Grassley, the original author of wind energy tax credit legislation in 1992, wants to extend the tax credit for the production of electricity from wind and for open-loop biomass as well.