Move Your Money

In the State of the Union address President Barack Obama advocated taking billions of dollars of TARP money and giving it to community banks to use for small business lending.

The Huffington Post reports

The president said he wants to “take $30 billion of the money Wall Street banks have repaid and use it to help community banks give small businesses the credit they need to stay afloat.”

Obama also called for a new small business tax credit that would help over one million small businesses “who hire new workers or raise wages”; the elimination of all capital gains taxes on small business investment; and a new tax incentive for “all businesses, large and small, to invest in new plants and equipment.”

Felix Salmon of Reuters adds

Obama proposed in his speech “that we take $30 billion of the money Wall Street banks have repaid and use it to help community banks give small businesses the credit they need to stay afloat” — which is a good idea, and one I support, with strong echoes of the admirable Move Your Money campaign. (And, just like that campaign, I hope and trust that the concept of “community banks” will be expanded to include credit unions.)

Heather Booth, Director of Americans for Financial Reform, saw this as a call to action:

Members of Congress should use last night’s State of the Union as the moment to rush to the people’s side of the line. This is a historic chance for them to stand with the great majority of our country, and it would be tragic if they let industry cash or inside-the-Beltway double speak stand in their way. Half measures aren’t cutting it, and a halfhearted commitment to reform won’t either.