We came from a family where we ran our own small business. Our dad made his own products. We made our own sausages, our own meatloafs, our own pickles. Dad had to do everything himself. He had to figure out how to finance his business.

When families save, they can get through emergencies like a bad harvest or a medical emergency. But it's more than that. They can also plan for the future, gradually saving up for a small business or for their children's school tuition.

It's not government that creates jobs; it's small business. Our job is to make sure they have the access to capital, the access to contracting opportunities, and the help, advice and mentoring that they need to go out and be successful.

Some people say the reason I am not married is that I don't understand small business and the toughest small business in the world is a family. But when you are happy and feel every minute of your life, what is the reason to get married?

I like to tell small business owners and entrepreneurs, 'I get it. I have your back on this. I understand about regulation. I understand how taxes are taxing. I understand what it is like not to be able to borrow money when you need it.'

Small business is crucial. I think we talk so much about large businesses, they're well represented; they talk well for themselves. But most people work for small businesses; most wealth that stays in a community gets generated from them.

I once started a small business when I got out of college and enjoyed the stress of making it work. High-stress situations clear my head, and I love the challenge of getting along with many different kinds of people. I'm scared of routine.

My parents grew that small business from one 18-year-old guarding a bingo to more than 125 employees in three states. And sure, there was help along the way. But my parents took the risk. They stood up. And you better believe they built it.

Small businesses provide 75 percent of new U.S. jobs and are the backbone of our economy, and no outdated ban should be keeping small business owners from collecting the same interest their money could earn if it were held by an individual.

Mom was 50 when my Dad died. She got on a bus every weekday for years, and rode 40 miles each morning to Madison. She earned a new degree and learned new skills to start her small business. It wasn't just a new livelihood. It was a new life.

There is a lot of lip service paid in this Congress and downtown at the White House about family values and small business. Who better represents family values and small business than the fishermen and women on the Oregon and California coast.

Growing up in the Midwest, I was very close to my maternal grandmother, who, as a young widow running a small business in 1920s Kansas City, had known firsthand the old Pendergast regime and its classic combine of politics and organized crime.

Under the AHP approach, the average small business might be able to offer their employees one or two insurance plans, and that employee of the small business would have no idea whether their doctor was going to be a apart of one of those plans.

Occupational licensing laws - in trades like moving companies, realtors, hair dressers, limousine services, beauticians, physical therapy, and on and on - stunt small business start ups, destroy jobs, and raise prices for lower-income consumers.

One of the best programs that the federal government sponsors is the Small Business Innovation Research program, in which more than 2.5 percent of federal research and development funding at the largest agencies goes directly to small businesses.

My father built a small business from scratch with years and years of sweat equity and many, many weeks away from home. He employed about 50 people, and by the end of his working years, the business was highly successful. He became a millionaire.

It is simply unfair for the Internal Revenue Service to lay claim to the bulk of a small business or farm when a death occurs. Federal tax policy should instead be geared toward helping the next generation keep these family-owned operations alive.

I've started several small businesses myself and know that it is tough out there for the little guy in the global economy. I came to the conclusion that, oftentimes, the best thing the government can do for small business is to stay out of the way.

My father is a taxi driver, and my mother ran a small business. I hadn't even met a barrister before I got my first shot at the legal profession. But back then, I was lucky enough to be given a break - I can't help but wonder if I would be so lucky today.

I'm the guy who's started businesses, I've been a small business owner. I've employed hundreds of Pennsylvanians. I know how to get jobs moving in the private sector, rein in the excesses in Washington, and bring some balance to a town that's lost all balance.

I was honored to start a small business and to borrow an enormous amount of money and to build piece upon piece, place upon place, building upon building and product upon product, throughout the United States and eventually Europe and facilities around the world.

When I came to Congress, like our first panel, small business people, 64 percent of the people had health insurance. We'd buy it. Now, we're down to about 34 percent. That's why we have to do something on health care in this country because the cost is killing us.

Oddly enough, government policy helped get the fast food outlets into the city. Very well-intentioned small business administration loans to encourage minority business ownership. The easiest business to get into is opening a fast-food franchise in the inner city.

One of my bosses happened to be one of the early architects of some of the ways Internet providers work. He taught me how the cables connect, how the telecom providers work... I learned how to make my own Ethernet cables, all the way up to running a small business.

As you probably know, half of the people who work in this country work for small businesses. And it's more than that, because two out of every three net new jobs come from small business. So we mean it when we talk about small business being the engine for the economy.

As an entrepreneur and a small business owner, you are intimately familiar with goals. You've dreamed of the 'right' ones, you've projected 'real' ones for the banker and the investor, and, secretly, you've imagined how life can be if you can reach the ones you've set.

It is hard to be enthusiastic about the economy's prospects when house prices are falling: Households spend less, small business owners can't use homes as collateral for loans and local governments are forced to cut jobs and programs as property-tax revenue disappears.

At the end of drama school, I made a contract with myself: I'd try acting for five years. I was 26. I had already spent eight years working in restaurants and gas stations. So I had seen enough small businesses to understand that that's what acting is: a small business.

Oh, I'm all about small business. I think what we've learned from big business and big Wall Street is that unchecked greed and the creation of false value gets us all in trouble. If we look at the American economy, who's really creating value? It's the small businesses.

After several trillion dollars of stimulation by the Obama Administration and the Fed, one might think the economy would be chugging along at a pretty good clip. But, it just isn't so, and the light at the end of the tunnel is pretty dim. Just ask a small business owner.

The average small-business owner uses 18 apps to run their business every day, and if those applications don't allow data to flow seamlessly and they don't integrate, it's going to become a point of friction. It's going to prevent the small business from being successful.

I've heard time and again from small business owners in Ohio that extending bonus depreciation is the single biggest factor in allowing their businesses to grow. Allowing companies to use these tools for capital reinvestment is a common-sense way to encourage job creation.

After adding trillions to the debt on big-government policies most Americans didn't ask for and which we couldn't afford, Democratic leaders say they need more money, which they intend to take from small business, even though small businesses create the majority of new jobs.

Conventional wisdom suggests the primary motivator for entrepreneurs is money or wealth creation and, in fact, much of the political debate tends to center around what kind of tax or regulatory policy changes will turn corporate suits into small business adventurers overnight.

The value of small business contracting is indisputable. These firms bring healthy competition to the federal market to drive down prices. They are our nation's innovators and job creators, and securing a federal contract helps them grow and offers more benefit to the economy.

Many small business owners want to pass their family legacy on to their kids and grandkids, but they are turned over to vulture funds because the family may be asset rich but lacks the cash to pay the estate taxes. I have met people who literally sold the farm to pay the taxes.

I moderated a panel focusing just on women and the specific challenges that women entrepreneurs face. And we found that around the world, the challenges are the same, whether it is gaining access to capital, risk-taking, or the ability to expand beyond a small business and grow.

One of biggest lies in politics is the lie that Republicans are the party of big business. Big business does great with big government. Big business is very happy to climb in bed with big government. Republicans are and should be the party of small business and of entrepreneurs.

Politicians also have a love affair with the 'small business exemption.' Too much paperwork? Too heavy a burden? Not enough time? Just exempt small businesses from the rule. It sounds so pro-growth. Instead it's an admission that the costs of a regulation just can't be justified.

When I say, 'doin' it, doin' it, doin' it' to a group of small business owners, they immediately respond. They recognize the experience of doing the same things over and over. Keeping the business afloat without ever getting ahead. And it's more than frustrating - it's heartbreaking.

In 2007, Michael Grimm, former Marine, former FBI agent, accountant and attorney, was poised for success as a small business owner. Instead, as alleged, Grimm made the choice to go from upholding the law to breaking it. In so doing, he turned his back on every oath he had ever taken.

On the one hand, Porto Monenegro is shape-shifting - it replaced a naval shipyard with a new marina - but it's also mind-shifting, opening up an array of other small business opportunities. And this shape-shifting and mind-shifting, it is exactly what we're trying to do in Montenegro.

The most important thing for small businesses is getting the economy back on its feet. That - the key driver of small business activity is demand for their product, and that is what we are trying to do, getting the economy back on its feet. That's far more important than other factors.

We want to help U.S. entrepreneurs, small business owners, and brands and companies of all sizes sell their goods to the growing Chinese consumer class. Chinese consumers will get to buy the American products they want. This, in turn, will help create American jobs and increase U.S. exports.

How can you, as a small business owner, figure out what you are and, from there, begin to take action? Simple - you have to understand what part of the job you are doing and, if it isn't fulfilling the role of the entrepreneur in your business, you must make the decision to take on that role.

If you aren't talking to your kids about socialism, someone else is. So use car time, dinner time, tax preparation time, and time spent together at your work or small business to teach your child about the virtues of capitalism, the system of government that has lifted more people out of poverty.

We have a duty to ensure that patients don't have to worry whether they'll be dropped from their coverage if they get sick. Small business owners shouldn't have to break the bank to provide coverage to their employees. And families should not be forced into bankruptcy because of a medical crisis.

Stripe makes it easy for anyone, be it an individual or a small business or a large business, to accept credit card payments on the Internet. We want to give control to the user or the business to define what the experience looks like. We work on a website or a mobile app, or whatever between that.

When we look at the investment decisions into the city of Compton, the small business community and global corporations and retailers and all of those types of services that decide to come into the community to serve it, they look at the perception, how does the brand work with the local community.

I have reviewed literally hundreds of dotcoms in my drive to bring Boomer Esiason Foundation onto the Internet, and have selected ClickThings as a partner because of the advanced technology it offers small business, and its understanding of the entrepreneurial spirit of the small business community.

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