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House Passes Bill to Help Small Businesses Grow & Go Public Haydn Hornstein-Platt March 8, 2012 [|For Further Information: CNN Money- "JOBS Act"]

The house overwhelmingly passed a bill on Thursday (390 to 23) that eases certain rules enforced by the Securities and Exchange Commission. These rules relate to the process of growing from a privately owned business to a publicly owned business, therefore opening the market to many small businesses that wouldn't have gone public before. President Obama has indicated his support of the bill based on the promise of new jobs and the promise of an economy boost. This bill is entitled the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act, or the "JOBS Act", as the Republicans have been calling it. There are several important pieces of this new law. First of all, the fact that Democrats and Republicans are agreeing on anything is a very good sign. As Obama said at the very beginning of his presidency, our country is currently split, but we need to pull together to create change and make progress. In the worlds of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, "By having a win like this, I think we can demonstrate that (both political parties) really can work together. The second important piece of the bill is that it will spur the economy. Allowing businesses to further grow will create jobs, and it will stimulate the stock market with so many IPOs. If the law passes, companies will be able to advertise to possible investors while going public. This is where a lot of conflict is arising.

"The bill would relax SEC rules on small and medium sized companies with less than a billion dollars in gross revenue that go public, putting new rules into effect over five years instead of all at once. After five years, or if the company's gross revenue exceeds $1 billion, the company would have to abide by SEC deadlines and rules."- Jennifer Liberto, CNN News

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The conflicts arising over the new bill are plentiful. Lynn Turner, a former Securities and Exchange Commission chief accountant, claims that the bill would in fact not create jobs, and it would put investors in danger of being, essentially, robbed. One of the major groups opposing the bill is AARP, claiming that, "The net effect would likely be to undermine rather than support sustainable job growth." According to the economist and former White House adviser Jared Bernstein, we won't know if this bill will be successful until after it as passed. This is potentially a big risk, but is it a risk we're willing to take to create jobs?

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Essential Question: Is this economic risk worth the potential for creating jobs, especially considering our presently improving economy?