By Sarah Mupo -- February 2, 2010
President Obama held a town hall meeting in Nashua, N.H. Tuesday to rally support for his plan to invest $30 billion in lending for small businesses.
The money would recycle $30 billion in repaid bailout loans from the Troubled Asset Relief Program, which helped the country's major financial institutions, to create a Small Business Lending Fund.
The new fund would then be able to supply capital to smaller community banks to faciliate easier lending to small businesses. According to a White House fact sheet, the money would extend lending by up to 8,000 banks.
"These are the small, local banks that work most closely with small
business--they're usually the ones that provide them their first loan,
and they watch them grow through good times and bad," Obama said. "The more loans these banks provide to creditworthy small businesses,
the better deal we'll give them on capital from this fund that we've
set up."
The lending fund is part of Obama's larger plan to persuade the private sector to increase hiring, although the unemployment rate is stagnant at 10 percent in light of current economic growth.
Obama has also supported $33 billion in small buisness tax cuts as well as hiring and wage increase incentives.
The New Hampshire location is politically important for the president because, according to the New Hampshire secretary of state's office, more than 40 percent of the registered state voters last November were independents.
The town hall meeting is Obama's second trip to New Hampshire since being elected.
