McCarthy touts small-business legislation

The third-ranking House Republican opened a sandwich shop at the age of 20, and the plight of small businesses in the U.S. is a theme he mentions in nearly every public utterance.

With the GOP looking to promote a jobs agenda over increasing attacks from President Obama, McCarthy is touting a package of bills that he says would make it easier for small businesses to expand.

{mosads}The centerpiece is a measure that would remove Depression-era restrictions on how businesses can solicit capital from new investors. Under the Securities Act of 1933, companies must either pay the cost of registering with the Securities and Exchange Commission or solicit only from investors with whom they have a pre-existing relationship.

McCarthy said the current regulations prevent some businesses from expanding and could have stopped him from growing his deli shop in the 1980s.

He sold the deli, called Kevin O’s, to pay for college.

The legislation “is not the end all,” McCarthy told a group of reporters in his office, “but it’s a beginning to start.”

“It’s a small step, but when you measure job growth, it is small business that creates the job growth,” he said. “We need to start looking at the entrants to market for small businesses.”

McCarthy said he expects the bill to come up for a House vote in the next month, and noted that it had bipartisan support in the Financial Services Committee. The panel is scheduled to mark up the bill on Wednesday.

It is part of a package of legislation to reduce regulations on business that House Republicans have been pushing throughout the autumn.

McCarthy said he did not know of specific industry or administration opposition to the legislation. He said he did not have an estimate of how many jobs it would create.