ICYMI: Cox letter to Small Business Administration jump starts rural business office
Lewiston Sun Journal: Federal bureaucrats never established the Office of Rural Affairs when it was mandated in 1990, but after a California representative took action to get it going, financial assistance for business development in states like Maine may finally get off the ground.
Answering a 30-year-old call for the federal Small Business Administration to establish an Office of Rural Affairs, a group of U.S. representatives are backing an effort to get it going.
Back in 1990, Congress approved a measure, signed into law by President George H.W. Bush, ordering the Small Business Administration to establish a new office to “strive to achieve an equitable distribution of the financial assistance available from the administration for small business concerns located in rural areas,” and a slew of other initiatives to help rural areas.
That was apparently the last time anyone paid attention to the law until U.S. Rep. TJ Cox, a California Democrat, realized last spring that nobody ever actually created the mandated federal office.
Calling the Office of Rural Affairs “an office which has the potential of helping grow and strengthen rural America’s small businesses,” Cox began asking questions, submitted legislation to have the SBA explain what happened and got some colleagues to co-sign a letter to President Donald Trump’s administration to inquire about the possibility of jump-starting the office [...]
WATCH: Rep. Cox questions incoming SBA Director of Rural Affairs
I've been fighting for small rural businesses from day one, so when the U.S. Small Business Association (SBA) failed to respond to my letter asking when their office to help rural small businesses would be reestablished, I resolved to get answers from their leadership.I'm glad to say that yesterday I got a firm promise that the SBA will come up with a full plan for reestablishing this agency so we can get to work helping rural businesses thrive.