Chairman Chabot: Small Businesses Not Mentioned ‘Nearly Enough in the Presidential Election’

Rep. Steve Chabot (R-Ohio), chairman of the House Small Business Committee, said the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates are not talking “nearly enough” about small businesses on the campaign trail.

Chabot also said Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is “the one to beat” right now in the race. Chabot told PJM he has not made an official endorsement but said he would support Gov. John Kasich (R-Ohio) and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.).

“I don’t think small businesses come up nearly enough in the presidential election on either side at this point. Now, I’m a representative from Ohio and our governor John Kasich is running and I certainly would put him and those who I would support as well as Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush. I think we’ve got some good candidates. Some that dropped out were pretty good candidates too,” he said after his speech at the Kauffman Foundation’s “State of Entrepreneurship Address” in Washington.

Chabot recently wrote an op-ed in reaction to former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) struggling to name any of Rubio’s legislative accomplishments.

“I have not endorsed, but I did in my blog talk about when he was attacked for not accomplishing anything in the Senate. He was the principle sponsor in the Senate and I was the principle sponsor in the House of the Girls Count Act, which will protect a lot of girls from ending up being trafficked by criminal gangs because they don’t have birth certificates and their existence is not documented and they are very vulnerable,” he said.

During his remarks at the entrepreneurship event, Chabot explained that his committee serves as a model of how Washington “could work” since the Democratic and Republican members have worked together on several issues.

PJM asked Chabot what regulation he thinks is impeding small businesses the most and why.

“If I had to pick one it would be Dodd-Frank, which makes access to capital more challenging than it should be,” he said. “Small businesses oftentimes need to borrow from a community bank or a credit union and it makes it tougher for them to get that loan because they have a whole new level of bureaucracy over the heads of those banks or credit unions and they need more money to grow and create jobs.”