Gregg, Simpson Unveil Plan for Small Business, Indiana Manufacturing
INDIANAPOLIS – Gubernatorial candidate John Gregg and lieutenant gubernatorial candidate Vi Simpson unveiled their plan to strengthen small business and Indiana Manufacturing today, outside of Canon IV, an Indianapolis small business. The plans are part of Gregg and Simpson’s “Hoosier Handshake” plan that they have been unveiling throughout the year.
The plan highlights how the Gregg-Simpson administration will focus on growing both small business and Indiana manufacturing jobs by investing in those types of businesses, cutting taxes and removing barriers to entry to the marketplace.
“If we are serious about job creation – and we are – we need to do everything we can to give Hoosier manufacturers and small businesses a leg up, and then get out of their way,” Gregg said. “These common sense reforms will help grow small businesses throughout our state and create manufacturing jobs here, in Indiana.”
Senator Simpson added, “Indiana has a rich manufacturing tradition. By focusing on creating manufacturing jobs now and growing small businesses for the future, we can ensure economic growth today and for our children.”
More specifically, the plan will do the following:
Manufacturing
- Create a “re-shoring” incentive that offers employers a three-year payroll tax credit to companies for manufacturing jobs that are returned to Indiana from abroad.
- Create a Governor’s Office of Manufacturing that will be devoted to making Indiana manufacturing more productive, competitive and profitable. This will include an action team that will be a point of contact for companies looking to move to, or expand in, Indiana, streamline access to financial assistance, identify out- of- state suppliers for Indiana manufacturers that can be brought to Indiana, and provide market research and feasibility assessment tools.
- Put Hoosier veterans to work in Indiana manufacturing jobs. Many veterans have skills that manufacturers are looking for. The Gregg-Simpson administration will work to match skilled vets with manufacturing companies looking to hire.
- Launch the Indiana Manufacturing Development Corporation. This corporation will facilitate the transfer of technologies from universities and federal laboratories to the private sector. The corporation will leverage funds used for research and development to develop a specific technology or technology package.
- Incentivize manufacturers to invest in innovation for long-term, high-quality job creation. This will be done in two ways:
- Focusing Indiana Economic Development Corporation resources on supporting Indiana manufacturers’ development of innovative products.
- Offering an Advanced Technology tax credit of up to 10 percent for investments in new manufacturing equipment and factory upgrades to help manufacturers to incorporate more advanced technology into their systems.
- Launch Manufacturing Fellowships and Internships through University Programs in Advanced Manufacturing.
- Create a Lean Manufacturing Boot Camp Program for small manufacturers that will introduce cutting-edge management principles that can be applied immediately and tailored to the challenges faced by small manufacturers. The focus will be on increasing productivity and efficiency in a resource-constrained environment.
- Re-tool Indiana manufacturing for renewable energy. Renewable energy is rapidly expanding not only in Indiana, but also throughout the country. The Gregg Simpson administration will grow this industry here by:
- Creating an Innovation Investment Opportunity Index to classify opportunities for capital investment in clean-tech and other non-traditional manufacturing, and to serve as a clearinghouse for potential investors and partners.
- Leveraging all available federal funding for redevelopment projects, like those that create green manufacturing jobs in the same places that traditional manufacturing jobs have been lost.
- Upgrading our manufacturing workforce by collaborating with industry and high schools, technical institutions and college to address the skills gap that exists between workers and employers.
- Investing in Indiana’s infrastructure so we can move more manufactured goods across our roads, bridges, rails and waterways.
- Create a manufacturing- friendly energy policy that guarantees access to inexpensive and reliable energy by investing in safe energy sources to help secure our energy future and economic security.
- Expand the global reach of Indiana manufacturing by promoting exports of Indiana products throughout the globe.
Small Business
- Create the Hoosier Capital Access Partnership to increase the availability of capital and technical resources for small businesses. The Partnership will make funds available to banks that loan to pre-approved small businesses, helping them to grow.
- Encourage micro-lending to make capital available to businesses that do not have access to the traditional commercial banking sector.
- Invest a percentage of matched federal Small Business Innovation Research funds to help small businesses afford expenses, such as continuing research between grant phases, marketing, and intellectual property support.
- Provide state matching funds for grants from corporations and federal sources, including the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the National Science Foundation (NSF), and the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program.
- Create an Indiana Research Commercialization Matching Grant Program that will assist startup companies, leveraging federal and state partnerships to accelerate their growth and market penetration.
- Expand the impact of our Small Business Development Centers by ensuring that we pursue the replication of successful programs to give our small businesses the tools they need to succeed.
- Remove barriers to growth for small business through comprehensive regulatory reform and streamlining. This will include:
- Collaborating with regulated industries to identify areas of excessive cost or time burden, unrealistic or ineffective rules, and unintended consequences.
- Conducting and independent cost- benefit analysesis of regulations.
- Increasing the speed and certainty of regulatory processes through single points of entry.
- Focusing specifically on the regulatory needs of small businesses that cannot afford to keep attorneys or tax accountants on payroll.
- Reducing barriers to entry for small and micro-businesses into the formal sector, in terms of registration costs, regulations and bureaucratic requirements.
- Removing perverse disincentives to development and expansion for businesses of any size.
- Cut taxes for Indiana small businesses:
- Institute a New Job Tax Credit for small businesses that create new jobs in Indiana, equal to 100 percent of employers’ Payroll Tax collections for the first three years of each new full- time employee.
- Reduce property taxes for small businesses by exempting business equipment from property tax assessment for the first $1 million in business equipment. This essentially will eliminate the business equipment tax for small businesses, and free up money for growth and job creation.
- Update the tax code to expand state tax exemptions on utility and plant patents to other kinds of patents. Indiana was the first state with the foresight to grant a tax exemption on intellectual property income, which includes income from licensing fees, royalties, patent sale, or patent-covered product sales. Now, other patents like software and intellectual property are just as vital innovations to our economic growth and require tax exemptions.
- Allow tax credits for stock option compensation from small businesses. Stock options, royalties and licensing income from patents and copyrights are important ways for small businesses in the New Economy to attract high-technology talent to fledgling companies with limited capital. By offering these credits, Indiana can attract these high-growth-potential businesses.
- Doing more state business with Indiana small businesses:
- The Gregg-Simpson administration will break up unnecessarily large contracts whose sheer size prevents many Indiana small businesses from bidding on them. While large contracts are sometimes justified as more cost-efficient, too often contracts are made larger than necessary to be more convenient to large, established contractors.
- Un-bundle state contracts when possible. Contract bundling is the number one barrier to small business participation in state contracts and our administration will work to roll it back.
The full Gregg-Simpson Plan for Reiving Hoosier-Based Business and Industry can be read here: http://www.greggforgovernor.com/docs/Small-Biz-Manufacturing.pdf