Tim Kaine Campaigns in Pennsylvania and Nevada

Tim Kaine continued his campaign visit to Pennsylvania today with a morning event in Pittsburgh. Speaking on the campus of Carnegie Mellon University, Kaine spoke about Hillary Clinton’s broad platform proposals including her plans to reduce student debt, make college more affordable, increase the minimum wage, create new jobs, and reinvest in manufacturing. Pittsburgh is especially reliant on its manufacturing sector and has struggled recently. Kaine went after Republican Donald Trump for talking about bringing manufacturing back to the United States when Trump himself imports in products from China and Mexico. Kaine said, “Don’t you think if Trump believed in making America great he’d buy steel right from here and not China?” Watch a video of Kaine’s speech below.

Kaine then traveled to Las Vegas, Nevada where he spoke at a rally at a local United Brotherhood of Carpenters union. Kaine spoke about the plan that he and Clinton have outlined including the support of labor unions and creation of new jobs. He remained on the offensive going after Trump and his running mate Mike Pence. Referring to Pence’s refusal to answer for Trump’s comments, Kaine said, “I am going to defend my running mate. That’s what you do when you’re vice president.” A video from the event is posted below.

For all the latest, follow our Scheduled Events page and follow Clinton on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram. Also, be sure to subscribe to the campaign’s official Podcast, With Her.

News Source: Penn Live, CBS Pittsburgh, WTAE, Las Vegas Review-Journal

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

For all the latest, follow our Scheduled Events page and follow Clinton on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram. Also, be sure to subscribe to the campaign’s official Podcast, With Her.

News Source: LinkedIn, The Briefing, Bloomberg, Forbes

Clinton Unveils Prescription Drug Plan in Iowa

On Tuesday, Hillary Rodham Clinton continued addressing heath care issues by announcing her plan to curb the rising costs of prescription drugs. Speaking at Moulton Elementary School in Des Moines, Iowa, Clinton said that, “We’re going to add on to the good work that was done by the Affordable Care Act.” The plan she outlined would require pharmaceutical companies to reinvest profits into research, allow for the import of drugs from other countries, expand opportunities for generic medications, allow Medicare to negotiate for lower drug costs, and cap the out-of-pocket expense for everyday Americans with chronic health issues.

Clinton made it clear that she would tougher on the companies, especially since many of them receive tax payer funded grants from the government to supplement the funding of their research. Then, they charge an exorbitant amount for the drug. She said, “That is not the way the market is supposed to work. That is bad actors making a fortune off of people’s misfortune. Pharmaceutical companies can charge astronomical fees, far beyond anything it would take to recoup their investment and far beyond.” Read a full fact sheet of Clinton’s plan from The Briefing.

Clinton also made headlines during the event when she declared that she is against the building of the Keystone XL Pipeline. She said, “I think it is imperative that we look at the Keystone XL pipeline as what I believe it is: A distraction from the important work we have to do to combat climate change, and, unfortunately from my perspective, one that interferes with our ability to move forward and deal with other issues. Therefore, I oppose it. I oppose it because I don’t think it’s in the best interest of what we need to do to combat climate change.” The video below is not complete and will be updated when/if a full is available.

For all the latest updates, follow our Scheduled Events page and follow Clinton on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

News Source: USA Today, CNN, NBC News