Hillary Clinton Announces Plan to Boost Small Businesses

On Tuesday, Hillary Clinton announced a plan she would introduce as president to boost small businesses. She introduced her plan in an article for LinkedIn followed by a teleconference with members of the press and several small business owners. Clinton warned of Donald Trump’s past business practices with small businesses arguing that a Trump presidency would not be good for small business owners. The comprehensive plan builds on her overall economic plan which would create millions of jobs by investing in infrastructure upgrades and clean energy. Small businesses play into her overall plan as they will provide American workers and products. An outline of the plan is below and the full plan is available on The Briefing.

1. Make it easier to start a business and become profitable
   • Push states to make it faster and cheaper to start a business
   • Working with states to standardize licensing requirements
   • Making technical assistance and resources available to states
   • Provide incubators, mentoring, and training to 50,000 entrepreneurs and small business owners in underserved communities
2. Make it easier to get financing and find investors
   • Streamline regulation and cut red tape for community banks and credit unions
   • Harness the potential of online lending platforms
   • Reduce the burden of student debt by allowing entrepreneurs to defer student loan payment
   • Promote the 100% tax exclusion on capital gains for long-term small business investments
   • Expand and streamline the SBA’s Small Business Investment Company program
   • Support new innovative ways to assess creditworthiness for small business owners
   • Expand access to credit in underserved communities
   • Give the SBA administrator the authority to continue providing 7(a) loan guarantees to small businesses
   • Expand access to working capital by expanding the SBA’s working capital guarantee programs
3. Make it cheaper and faster to file taxes and pay for tax relief
   • Work to create a new standard deduction for small businesses
   • Allow 4 million small businesses with gross receipts under $1 million to take advantage of “checkbook accounting”
   • Allow small businesses to immediately expense up to $1 million in new investments
   • Quadruple the start-up tax deduction to significantly lower the cost of starting a business
4. Make it easier to offer health care and other benefits to employees
   • Simplify and expand the healthcare tax credit
   • Allow more small businesses pool together to offer retirement plans
5. Make it easier to work with the federal government
   • Work to completely revamp the digital experience for small businesses
   • Use the leverage of more than $400 billion in federal government contracting to encourage businesses to pay their suppliers in full and on time
   • Guarantee a 24-hour response time to small businesses with questions about federal regulations and access to capital programs
   • Ensure that Small Business Development Centers are placed in the highest-need communities with staff that speaks the language of local residents
   • Work to ensure that federal regulations aren’t unnecessarily holding small businesses and our economy back
   • Increase federal contracting opportunities for women-owned, minority-owned, and veteran-owned small businesses
   • Defend and strengthen the Export-Import Bank
   • Encourage small business exports by expanding SBA funding for export development
6. Make it easier to fight back when you’re getting stiffed

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News Source: LinkedIn, The Briefing, Bloomberg, Forbes

Hillary Clinton Pens Essay in Teen Vogue

This week, Teen Vogue published a special issue of their magazine featuring articles for girls, by girls. One of the essays was written by Hillary Clinton. In it, she offers inspiring advice to teenage girls on how their voices can be heard. Clinton says that three key ways to ensure they have a voice are: find something you care about and fight for it, learn from those who disagree with you, and vote. In her conclusion, Clinton says:

“I know many of you didn’t vote for me in the primaries. But no matter who you supported—whether it was me, Senator Bernie Sanders, or another candidate—I’m going to keep working hard to earn your trust. I’m not taking anything for granted. The stakes in this election are higher than ever. We have to come together to build an America that reflects the values your generation embodies—diversity, openness, innovation—and stop those who want to take us in a very different direction. Your age group is the largest American generation living today. That gives you a lot of power and even more responsibility. I know you’re up to it. “

Read the full essay HERE.

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News Source: Teen Vogue

Clinton Interviewed by The Telegraph

In a rare exclusive interview for a newspaper, Hillary Clinton sat down with reporter Rebecca Traister. The interview appeared in the United Kingdom paper The Telegraph and came after Traister shadowed Clinton on the campaign trail and got an inside look at how her campaign operates. She saw the personable side of Clinton as well as the hard charging presidential candidate. Clinton and Trister sat down for an interview during which they spoke about gun control, Republican Donald Trump, and lighter subjects such as her favorite television shows and life as a grandmother. Overall, the article is very well written and offers a glimpse behind of the scenes of the rigorous campaign cycle. Read the full article HERE.

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News Source: The Telegraph

Hillary Clinton Pens Op-Ed on Immigration Reform

On Friday, an op-ed written by Hillary Clinton appeared in The Arizona Republic. In the piece, Clinton discusses yesterday’s disappointing Supreme Court decision, and she criticizes Republican Donald Trump’s views on immigration. Clinton argues that comprehensive immigration reform is the best way to ensure that everyone has the best opportunity to live up their potential. Her op-ed is full of stories of people that she has met on the campaign trail and illustrate why immigration reform is such an important goal. A copy of the op-ed is below:

When Josie Mata was 7 years old, she learned that her mother was undocumented.

From that moment on, Josie went to school every day afraid that she might return home to find her mom gone forever.

The Matas live, work and pay taxes in Tucson. Josie now attends the University of Arizona. Yet like so many other mixed-status families, the threat that their lives could be torn apart is never far from mind.

I’ve met many children and families who share this fear. In Las Vegas, a 10-year-old girl named Karla started to cry when she told me her parents had received a letter of deportation. She should have the chance to be the bright and happy little girl she is. Instead, she’s constantly afraid.

It’s become all too easy to see why.

Just this week, the Supreme Court deadlocked in a critical case, putting on hold executive actions taken by President Obama to provide immigrant families relief from deportation. It was heartbreaking and unacceptable.

And while our system fails to provide certainty to immigrant families, political figures like Donald Trump turn them into scapegoats for many of the challenges facing American families today.  His bigotry and fear-mongering may be an attempt to divide our country and distract from his lack of real solutions to raise incomes and create good paying jobs – but it’s not going to work.

Let’s be clear: When Trump talks about forming a “deportation force” to round up and expel 11 million immigrants – he’s talking about ripping apart families like Karla’s and Josie’s.

When he repeatedly suggests that a distinguished American judge’s “Mexican heritage” means that he cannot do his job, it’s the “textbook definition of a racist comment,” to quote the Republican Speaker of the House Paul Ryan.

When he praises local figures like Gov. Jan Brewer and Sheriff Joe Arpaio, he’s endorsing their heartless and divisive policies. And when he speculates about ending birthright citizenship, he’s suggesting undermining the Constitution and tearing American children away from the country they know and love.

Instead of building walls, we ought to be breaking down barriers. Our country has always been stronger when we lift each other up, not tear each other down. We’re stronger together.

That’s why, as president, I’ll fight for comprehensive immigration reform that includes a path to full and equal citizenship, starting in my first 100 days in office.  We should do everything we can to keep families together, better integrate immigrants into their communities, and help those eligible for naturalization take the last step to citizenship.

First, let’s focus on families. Today in Arizona, over 200,000 U.S. citizens – the vast majority of whom are children – live in the same household as an undocumented immigrant who qualifies for relief from deportation under the Deferred Action for Parental Accountability (DAPA) program — the program put on hold by the Supreme Court this week.

As a result of the court’s decision, these families, and millions more like them across our country, have been thrown into a state of uncertainty. As president, I’ll continue to defend DAPA and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) against partisan attacks.

And I’ll do everything possible under the law to go further to protect families. That means ending large-scale raids, ending the practice of family detention and shutting down private detention facilities.

Second, we need to increase our focus on integration and make sure that immigrants are able to thrive in American society. Let’s provide more federal resources to help immigrants learn the English language skills they need to be successful. And because this issue cuts across all levels of government – local, state and federal – I’ll create the first-ever Office of Immigrant Affairs at the White House to help coordinate these policies across the nation.

Third, let’s help the 9 million people in our country who are currently eligible for naturalization become full citizens. They work and pay taxes – yet they cannot vote or serve on juries. Let’s expand fee waivers so that those seeking naturalization can get a break on the costs. And let’s step up our outreach and education, because no one should miss out on the chance to be a citizen.

These steps aren’t just the right thing to do; they’ll also strengthen our entire country.

Bringing more workers into the formal economy boosts everyone’s wages. Recent economic research suggests that comprehensive immigration reform could add more than 8,000 jobs and nearly $700 million to Arizona’s economy – so it would actually benefit every family in the state, no matter how long they’ve lived here.

This is not a new fight for me.

As a young woman, I investigated appalling conditions for migrant workers for a U.S. Senate committee, and I traveled across south Texas registering Latino voters. As First Lady, I convened the inaugural conference on Latino Children and Youth, to make sure that Latino boys and girls were getting the same opportunities as any other child. As a senator, I co-sponsored the Dream Act three times and stood with Ted Kennedy in our fight to pass comprehensive immigration reform. As president, I’m committed to seeing this fight through to the finish line.

No matter what Donald Trump says, we have always been a nation of immigrants. Families like Josie’s and Karla’s are every bit as American as his or mine. And it is long past time we helped millions of hard-working people step out of the shadows and onto a path to a brighter future.

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News Source: The Arizona Republic

25 Things You Did Not Know About Hillary Clinton

In Us Weekly, an article appeared titled “Hillary Clinton: 25 Things You Don’t Know About Me.” The article consists of a list of 25 things that Clinton wrote about herself. Included in the list are her love of hot sauce, meeting Martin Luther King Jr., a job she once had in Alaska, her yoga, and her greatest weakness. You can read the full article HERE.

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News Source: Us Weekly

Clinton Featured in Time Magazine

In the February 18 issues of Time, Hillary Clinton is featured on the cover. The main story is an interview with Clinton by Joe Klein. During the interview, they discussed the recent Iowa caucus, health care, Republicans, her faith, and her Democratic opponent, Bernie Sanders. You can read a preview of the article HERE, or check out the issue for the full interview.

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News Source: Time

Clinton Authors Billboard Essay

On Thursday, an essay by Hillary Clinton was published by Billboard magazine. In the essay, Clinton pays tribute to this year’s Women in Music honorees and the hard work it has taken for them to achieve success in the music world. She specifically mentions how female artists have set many industry records including Lady Gaga being the first artist to reach one billion view on YouTube and Loretta Lynn more than 50 top 10 hits. The full text of Clinton’s essay is below.

The great Loretta Lynn once said that to make it in the music business, “You either have to be first, best or different.”

That’s true for all of this year’s Women in Music honorees, Ms. Lynn included. They’re different from anyone else out there. They’ve racked up many “firsts” — like first artist to get more than 1 billion views on YouTube (Lady Gaga) and first woman to chart more than 50 top 10 hits (Lynn). And they’re the best at what they do, whether that’s fronting a raucous soul band, ­writing ­hypnotic dance anthems, unspooling intricate rap lyrics about female empowerment or crooning ballads about heartbreak and young love.

I’ve been listening to some of these women for years. Others I recently discovered. Now I’m a fan of them all. Their talent is dazzling. So is their work ethic. None of these women had success handed to her. They all had to keep at it, even in the face of failure and discouragement — they kept ­singing, kept writing, kept getting better and better. They did it because they knew they had something ­special to offer the world. They knew their stories and points of view were worth ­sharing. And they were absolutely right about that.

Wonderfully, many of these women are ­channeling their success in thoughtful and ­generous ways. They’re starting foundations, mentoring girls and enthusiastically ­advocating for causes close to their hearts — everything from improving mental health care to ­registering ­people to vote. They know how lucky they are to be doing what they love, and they’re making it count in the best of ways. To me, that’s worth honoring just as much as their music.

Their success was made possible by people throughout the music industry who believed in them and worked hard to get their music out into the world. The trailblazing women executives who are celebrated in these pages aren’t just leading the music industry — they’re transforming it.

My hope is that women and girls around the world will hear these artists’ songs, learn their stories and feel a greater sense of ­possibility for their own lives. Maybe they’ll recognize ­themselves in these women. Maybe they’ll be inspired to reach toward their own dreams with greater urgency. Maybe they’ll stand a little straighter or speak a little louder because that’s what Gaga and Missy and Brittany and Tori and Selena and Demi and Kelsea and Lana and Ally and Normani and Lauren and Camilla and Dinah and Loretta would do.

And if none of that happens, who knows — maybe they’ll just dance.

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News Source: Billboard