In a welcome move away from partisanship, Sen. Jerry Moran of Kansas and Sen. Mark Warner, a Democrat of Virginia, have introduced a bill aimed at juicing up the economy.
Called the “Startup Act,” the legislation would encourage new businesses to form and help them flourish.
The two senators set their sights on easing the regulatory burden on businesses, offering some tax breaks and, perhaps most significantly, offering visas to foreign students who win degrees in the U.S. and would like to stay here and to foreign entrepreneurs who would like to bring their money and energy into the U.S. and start a business.
Section 8 of the bill is titled: “Conditional permanent resident status for foreign-born residents with an advance degree in science, technology, engineering or mathematics.”
It would:
— Create a new visa for up to 50,000 foreign students who graduate from an American university with a master’s or doctor’s degree in the fields cited above.
— Visa recipients would be granted conditional status contingent upon their remaining in one of those scientific fields for five consecutive years. Once conditional status is lifted, the visa holder becomes a permanent legal resident with an option to become a citizen.
Section 9 creates a visa program for up to 75,000 immigrant entrepreneurs who hold an H-1B visa, which is granted to men or women who have skills and training needed in the U.S., or who have technical training and start a new business within a year that employs at least two non-family employees and invests or raises at least $100,000 to capitalize the business.
Those who meet those requirements in their first year in the U.S. are allowed to remain in the country for three more years, at which time they can apply for permanent residency.
MORAN AND WARNER are tackling what should be an uncontroversial side of the immigration issue: how to make immigrants who have much to offer welcome. Of course, we should be eager to allow immigrants to stay who come to our country and earn scientific and technical degrees. Of course, we should welcome men and women with money and expertise who want to come to the U.S., start businesses and hire workers.
These features of the Startup Act should ensure its passage. The tax breaks offered will increase the deficit a bit but may also be a key incentive for some to take a chance and start a business.
They would make permanent the current exemption from the capital gains tax an entrepreneur enjoys who invests in a new small business for at least five years, with “small” defined as a business with less than $50 million in assets. Entrepreneurs would also get a tax credit for 100 percent of the profits earned in the first year and 50 percent in the next two years, with a maximum credit of $5 million allowed in each of the first three years.
Moran and Warner would also require the government to make an extensive cost-benefit analysis of all “major rules” and of proposed new regulations, with the goal of ensuring that government regulations don’t make the establishment of a new business difficult.
Perhaps this requirement deserves a double-take. Making an “extensive analysis” of all of the ways that government regulations affect business could be a budget-breaker and do more to make government bigger than to help business flourish. As a starter, maybe a careful analysis of proposed regulations would be sufficient.
All in all, the Startup Act looks like a bipartisan winner.
— Emerson Lynn, jr.
